Asperger’s Syndrome:

Day Fifteen

    by John Davis Jr.

Some days, the thoughts are too much.

My mind is a Mason jar full of marbles:

All beautiful, prismatic, unique, but excessive.

When shaken, it clacks harmonious dissonance:

Five hundred perfect spheres all shrieking

to be freed from their transparent trappings,

sent rolling onto the blank page of earth.

This one I shall release for you today, observer:

A deep crimson cat’s-eye with a fine streak of white

meant to be studied, admired, held up to the light

and marveled at before its return, sealed tight

in its fragile, crystalline container.

Hold me, love me, cherish me while you can

it cries, knowing its own unfortunate fate:

One day too soon, we’ll lose every one of them

underneath the creaking antique armchair,

and no one will bother to look there, in the dark.

© 2012  John Davis Jr.

John Davis Jr., M.Ed., serves as English Department Chair at the Vanguard School of Lake Wales, a college-preparatory, international boarding and day school for students with mild to moderate learning disabilities, including Asperger's Syndrome, ADD, ADHD, and other cognitive differences. He is also a MFA student at the University of Tampa.