It’s November and They’re Banning Books

Who she is
almost doesn’t matter—only that she can’t be
herself—not on the cover, not

in front of this class. Dancing
on a milky toadstool, she’s got to go—
can’t reveal her identity

in Chapter Four, questions bubbling
like manilla clams in low tide,
revealed. Her eyes

hide the velvet cinnamon
of November’s cool kiss all autumn, moist
and littered, scattered across Chapter Seven

like a mural of dead leaves. In the real world
November’s more of a cornucopia, filled
with snickering smoke, seasoned

with those cinnamon eyes as PTA moms burn
what they’re afraid of—books
forbidden, sticky caramel chapters, sweetness

authentic, but charred. And grinded and
glazed and torn—their disgust
with the internet, the teeth of their pride

sharp as needles, pressing through the skin of
what children shouldn’t see, what children shouldn’t
be, swallowing her smoking cinnamon eyes whole.

There’s nothing sweet about that.

Nora Gupta (she/her) / Poetry
The Bronx High School of Science, NY