our jowls crashing like cymbals, while my baby brother takes out his eight-ball left eye and squints his right to line up his shot on the world’s smallest pool table. Mother has a camera for a head; it flashes uncontrollably though she claims to have run out of film a hundred years ago, when father’s penis, an unstoppable spigot, became a garden sprinkler, contained by adult diapers, changed hourly, and hourly, my sister— shuffling out of her hiding place in the cuckoo clock, her hair a mess of paper clips, a Raggedy Ann doll in her arms—sighs to pass the time. Water seeps through the ceiling, because upstairs the bathtub overflows, for Grandma has forgotten the bath she’s drawn, and on the stove the gas is high, the flames are heating up a pudding over which my opa whispers: boil, boil, loyal rubble, follow me to the end of my life. by Christopher Shannon Minnie

Don’t bring camels in the classroom. Don’t bring scorpions to school. Don’t bring rhinos, rats, or reindeer. Don’t bring mice or moose or mule. Pull your penguin off the playground. Put your python in a tree. Place your platypus wherever you think platypi should be. Lose your leopard and your lemur. Leave your llama and your leech. Take your tiger, toad, and toucan anywhere but where they teach. Send your wombat and your weasel with your wasp and wolverine. Hide your hedgehog and hyena where you’re sure they won’t be seen. Please get rid of your gorilla. Please kick out your kangaroo. No, the teacher didn’t mean it when she called the class a “zoo. by Kenn Nesbitt Minnie

Bubble wrap, bubble wrap, pop, pop, pop. Wrapped around my bottom Wrapped around my top. I’m double-wrapped in bubble wrap It’s covering my clothes. It’s wrapped around my fingers. It’s wrapped around my toes. I’ve wrapped myself in bubble wrap exactly as I’d planned. But now I’m tied so tightly, I can barely even stand. I’m having trouble walking. I can hardly even hop. I guess I’ll have to roll today. Pop, pop, pop. Kenn Nesbitt Minnie

Deep within ourselves, there is a special knowledge. It tells us every now and then what it is that will really make us happy. I think we are born with it. It tells us why we are here and what we should do with our lives. Sometimes we listen to that little voice, and other times we dismiss it as a “silly dream”. Dare to Dream! Don’t push what you want in your life aside as if you are not worth it. You are! Dare to Dream! If your mind wanders to that special spot where you know what you want, go get it! If it’s meant to be it will, or something even better for you will be there waiting. Dare to Dream! When others tell you it’s impossible, they are just trying to knock you down because they have dismissed their dreams and are miserable because of it. You deserve to be happy! Dare to Dream! As you sit at work, or at home, or are in the car driving down a tree lined street, let your dream penetrate your mind when it surfaces instead of burying it beneath your worries. Dare to Dream my friend. For in this life you are given today. This is not a dress rehearsal! It is here and now. Make it count, make it yours. Live your life feeling like you are doing what you are supposed to be doing. Where there is a will, there is a way, but you may have to be resourceful. As you reach for your dream, even though it may not turn out exactly as planned, you have reached and strived to fulfill your purpose in life- not what someone else had planned for you. Dare to Dream! I have all the confidence and faith in the world in you. Do you have it in yourself? Dare to Dream! Be true to yourself. If others offer assistance, take it, don’t let your pride get in the way. Learn from others who are on your journey. Don’t let your quest be so blinding that it prevents you from treating others with dignity and respect- including yourself. Don’t ever sell yourself for a dream. If that’s what it takes to achieve it, you would have sacrificed your soul, therefore the dream wasn’t real. Dare to Dream! Can you afford not to? © Ellen M. DuBois Minnie