Senior biology class settles outside

on one of those too-nice-to-be-stuck-indoors

kind of days where sunshiny students search

for maple seeds and dissect flower petals

in a plant diversity scavenger hunt.

They map out pinecone reproductive cycles

compare moss leaves to tulip fronds

avoid the bees and wasps

and breathe fresh air tinged with nectar.

But one girl’s report on the method of plant reproduction

lands incorrect.  She states that for pine trees to pollinate

female cones must drop to the ground first and wait for male cones

to fall on top of them, thus making baby trees and

completing their life cycle.

I pull her aside to discuss her answer

but she veers off, declares college might not be for her

that she really wants to write

screenplays

maybe get involved in theater

that spending all that time and money in college

treasure hunting for connections

and internships

would sting her sense of reality

interfere with career aspirations

and hinder her independence

that she has all these dreams in her head

not wholly fleshed out

unready for me to know

unset to share these dreams with me

or anyone

certainly not here

not like this

not over a sundrenched pile

of oversexed pinecones

lying on the cool, damp grass.

Wayne Mennecke, selected as one of New York’s best emerging poets in 2019 and a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, is also an award‑winning science teacher at Islip High School. A Stony Brook University graduate with degrees in biology and education, he has conducted research in learning and memory and studied poetry with Jim Papa and Ron Overton. His work has appeared in Cagibi, Aurora Poetry, Oberon, Hanging Loose, Avocet, Long Island Quarterly, The Long Islander, and the anthology Fracture. His chapbooks Pencils Down and Hypochondria draw from his experiences teaching on Long Island. Mennecke lives in New York with his wife, Suzanne, and their daughter.