Lunchboxes, Full of Starch

We sit in six straight lines
—my new friends and I—
like eggs in Styrofoam pockets;
we are similarly bad for the environment.
We fidget at our desks made of painted plastic
and our clothing itches with starch.

We’re clutching our lunchboxes, full of starch
in various forms. With cookies packed in tight lines
encased in vacuum-sealed plastic.
We sit like cookies, my friends and I,
in our new vacuum-sealed environment,
shoving our hands in our pockets.

My neighbor has a quarter in her pocket;
she rubs it with all the leeway her pants will give her, so full of starch,
and it reminds her of her own environment
where she can’t escape the lines.
And she looks at me, and I
take her quarter and slip her a bracelet made of plastic.

She drops it on her desk with the clatter of plastic on plastic,
and I put my fingers to my lips and put the quarter in my pocket
where it clinks against the dimes I
have saved for candy. And the teacher tells us about Starch
with a capital S, and writes the word, with harsh blue lines,
on the chalkboard, next to the poster about the environment.

We are stuck with tags, disclaimers for the others in our environment;
our names are trapped behind a layer of plastic,
written in our bad handwriting, with shaky lines;
our names that cling like the titles of the eggs we are, in our pockets,
full of yolk, not starch.
The girl next to me is Mary, Grade-A Jumbo; what am I?

Mary Grade-A Jumbo stares at me but I
am too busy thinking about the environment
and why I should care how much starch
I eat when all we are is a waste of plastic.
And the quarters in my pocket
will be lost on candy; I’ll spend forever in that line.