Brown Paper Lunch Bag

Every school-day morning
I packed my lunch
In a brown paper bag
Wrapping my peanut butter and jelly sandwich
With wax paper, cut by sharp serrated edges on the box
The jelly always soaked through
And left squishy purple spots
On soft white bread
An apple and two cookies—
never more, even though I asked—
filled the bottom of the bag
The sandwich was hopefully placed on top
So it would not get squashed
But it always did

I wrote my name in pencil with capital letters
So no one in the class would get my lunch
By mistake or on purpose
As if someone would even want it --
An apple and two cookies
And peanut butter-and-jelly soaked bread

Every day I opened my bag
Feeling sure that just this once
There would be some exotic thing inside—
Green grapes like Cecelia's,
Peanut butter crackers like Tommy had
Or maybe even chocolate-covered marshmallows
Like Diane carried in her shiny
Pink-and-white metal lunch box

It never happened, not in all the time
I carried my lunch in a brown paper bag
But I never stopped believing
a miracle could happen
That Sister Margaret Mary
Would sprinkle secret holy water on my lunch
And change its plain contents
Into food fit for a king
Or for the undiscovered princess
With freckles and blue eyes
In the second desk in row three