Control

an education, I

—

she walks along
one of the paths between buildings
at the campus of her college.

it is a lovely college.
the administrators like to advertise it
as an arboretum;
but it is still a man-thing,
still made of imported dirt,
and concrete,
and plastic stones,
and expensive glass-fronted architecture
that wastes an inordinate amount
of heat in the winter.
she knows this because
her physics professor
complains to her about it.

there is a door on one of the art rooms
which has words written on it,
spray-painted in bright red stencil;
it says, you are not in control.

and when she passes it
on the way back to her parking spot
she writes under the stencil,
yes, I am.

she walks along
one of the paths between buildings
and the terracotta makes a hollow sound under her feet.

it is a lovely college
the administrators like to advertise it
as an arboretum;
and if she ignores the hollow terracotta
and does not watch her feet
but instead turns her head upward
she can see the sharp sky
outlined by dust-dark branches
in thin, unsaturated blue.
the soft moon hangs high
in the far side of the sky
and no professor ever looks up
to see.