Christina E. Petrides
Hushed students bow reverently over prostrate sheets.
Some, inspired, furiously bruise the paper
with what they spent hours memorizing.
A few touch doubtful lips, eyes inscrutably lowered,
earnest prayers unanswered.
For long minutes all heads angle in unison,
then one, and then another, surfaces
to shake his cramped fingers,
or to rearrange a wisp of hair behind her ear,
or to glance anxiously up
where the second-hand glides in calm circles
above the creaking chairs and sighs of resignation
or of relief when the last question is filled out
and the bell releases everyone into the noisy bustle of the hall.
An American expatriate, Christina E. Petrides lives and works on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. More than a score of her poems have appeared in various periodicals over the last two years. Her first children’s book, Blueberry Man, was published in 2020 by Tchaikovsky Family Books.
