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Student Submission

"Ode to Houston"-a poem by Tessa Hartley





Ode to Houston


Praise the laundry room

With the little table

And the camp chair

Where I got my school work done

Day after day, for months.


Praise my Nana

Who sat with me everyday

Teaching me the 2nd grade curriculum,

So I could visit my dad in the hospital

After I got my work done.


Praise the journal

That I hated

Because I never knew what to write about

So I would sit there,

And wait for my spinning brain to get an idea

So I could go see my dad.


Praise that apartment pool in Houston,

That I swam in countless times,

And would take videos of myself, jumping in the pool,

To send to my dad, while he was laying in the hospital,

With cancer,

Fighting for his life.


Praise the red raincoat,

On the back of the laundry room door

That I pledged allegiance to

Every day before homeschool,

Until we finally got to come home.


Praise the airplane

That finally took us away from Texas to our home,

And praise the airplane seat beside me

Where my dad sat.

-Tessa Hartley, freshman

-inspired by Kevin Young's "Ode to the Hotel Near the Children's

Hospital"


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