Interruption

She never noticed me sitting behind her,

blushing as she turned to pass back

the papers the teacher handed out,

papers passed desk to desk

in columns, five across and six deep,

the way of middle school in those days.

Her name was Dotty, in the seventh grade,

and I wanted to love her as seventh graders do,

but talk to her? Impossible!

Impossible, even, a “Thank You” as I lingered,

our hands joined by papers passed back to me

before turning myself to pass the papers on

to the girl behind me, some nameless girl,

who took them from me, not lovingly

as I had taken them, not thankfully,

but with contempt as if I’d somehow

soiled them in the passing, she

who’d prefer to be sitting in my seat,

behind Dotty, her friend, best girlfriend,

and I to her just an interruption

between them, an interruption in love,

unnoticed by both, an interruption and nothing more.