The children requested a mature conversation,

Knowing that one should be instituted, but not the content

Emma remembered kissing

Ruth Bader Ginsberg is dead, they all agreed in class that week

Like the week before they had agreed to mourn John Lewis

“I can see from her portrait, its ¾ view against a white field, or a courtly one,

That she is dead.

It is reproduced in my timeline.”

“Like the black square,” Student 1 reminded us,

“Like the black square,” agreed Student 2.

“Like the black square,” agreed Student 3.

“Like the black square,” agreed Student 4.

“Like the black square,” agreed Student 5.

“Like the black square,” agreed Student 6.

“Like the black square,” agreed Student 7.

“Like the black square,” agreed Student 8.

Emma, who was the second of the Student 2s, was the only one

who insisted on framing her death as a question,

“I saw her, her with the blue eye shadow. She was a whore,

only whores wear blue eye shadow and such thick mascara.

If you wait around, her eyes will follow you like a Scooby Doo painting,

and she will lift the hem of her robe.

If this was really Ruth Bader Ginsberg, wouldn’t she have kissed me?

But it isn’t her, this is paywalled. Her kiss is paywalled,

like the last letter we read.

We only got to read it because you, our teacher, photocopied it for us.

Isn’t that the kind of reproduction we should be dedicating our lives to?”

The teacher turned on her heel and nailed the photocopy to the wall,

arduously, for many times over the years had the walls been painted.

“Ah, now I have hung it at eye level. Surely you can read my message more clearly.”

Suddenly they remembered how it was safer to live in the country.

Emma took the opportunity and bent, kissing Simon on the cheek,

disappearing from view to do so,

returning afterward to reaffirm her rectangle.

When the computer chimed, Student 9 crept in, “How pleasant!”

and offered us a bite of his banana. It was yellow like he told us,

and unlike the sticker (Ecuador) it was from Costa Rica.

During this interval the students had reorganized themselves into alphabetical order,

and resumed discussion of the photocopy.

“I wished that this paper was recycled,

or digitized in some way.” said Student 8.

“They should have considered recycling,” agreed Student 5.

“They should have considered recycling,” agreed Student 4.

“They should have considered recycling,” agreed Student 1.

“They should have considered recycling,” agreed Student 7.

“They should have considered recycling,” agreed Student 6.

“They should have considered recycling,” agreed Student 3.

“They should have considered recycling,” agreed Student 2.

“It is only after recycling that we are free,” began Student 9,

“And these systems that oppress us, so unjust,

and who among us is not a student? When I appraise this paper,

I see people of all colors, of all religions, and of all sexualities.

I won’t rest until I have built a school for every photocopy.”

Emma, who was almost out of earshot, turned around. “Wait,”

she said. What first began as just a dot-Emma grew bigger,

which became Emma, the second of the Student 2’s,

as big as her rectangle would allow.

“Wouldn’t you want to make more photocopies, not schools?”

It was then that the first of the Student 2’s spoke up,

his voice taking the dimension of an overhead speaker,

“I think she threatens recycling, and distracts us with her kissing.

Why is her kissing so private? What shape is her kissing that it refuses its rectangle?

If she was really so honest, wouldn’t she nail it to the wall,

just as our teacher has done now, and the teacher before?

Wouldn’t that satisfy Student 9 in his appraising,

ours in our curiosity, and our teacher for her nailing?”

It was Emma’s work chiefly, despite it being a careful reproduction by hand.

First she made the photocopy, then the kissing.

I was reminded of the beginning,

And that revolutionary spirit, that we could make a new world here.

I said thank you to Emma and left for home.

I am glad I went to class that day,

and I felt well knowing that Ruth had been so thoughtfully laid to rest.