Workshop

I sit at the center,
the red metal stool
bearing my weight.
the girl in blue stares
at me with tiger eyes.
I face the other way, dragging
the stool as
it screeches—
my thoughts exactly.
The man in eyeglasses
shouts, “what’s the central image?”
the girl in blue nods,
not once
but twice
as the man hammers
my poems
on the table.
I face them,
carrying
my own weight as
he hurls the sheets
up in the air.
Our eyes witness
my syllables
fall
like the loosened
leaves
of a tree.