Survive Adult Life Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Anastasia Krupnik asked open-ended questions
doing a project on her career, wanting to become
a bookstore owner to sell her dad’s poems; today
we did open-ended questions in French Class for
grown-ups - over the hill and almost lying in our
coffins already -

How to use open-ended questions reverberated in
sepulchral tones as we studied arranging a meeting
on interior decoration and preferred mode of trans-
portation - my favourite subjects - my brain, never
willingly cooperating, exploded; I managed to ask
closed questions

About paintings and cars, proving myself village
idiot again - flabbergasted to know we still have
to study the seeming preserve of primary school
students - proving that reading children’s books
is the only way to survive adult life; so bizarre -
mere words

Fail to express the absurdity of deciding what
to ask spoilt officials during an imaginary
meeting with disgruntled French civil
servants…