When

15thMar. × ’09

You start to get mad
when the substitute asks
why their grammar’s so bad
after you’ve listened to her
yell through the walls
all day.

You start to get mad
when you’re walking home
and in store front reflections
you see your own furrowed brow
flash yourself a smile
and it doesn’t go away
(meta headache
maintained).

You start to get mad
when after a year and a half
the Chinese boy
scores an age four
on a reading comp test.

You start to get mad
when the one who’s excelling
starts to act out because
her dad just got imprisoned
and he was the super
so they’ve been evicted
and oh, her sister’s gone missing.

You start to get mad
when you find out
the kid with the speech impediment
didn’t speak until he was four
because his dad beat him so bad
and he just got out of jail,
hanging around again.

You start to get mad
when you notice a girl
is mostly deaf
(she’s also a Russian immigrant
who’s half black
and hates black people
or maybe just her drug addicted mom
or maybe school
or maybe herself)
and her dad’s dying.
They’re already in a shelter
so I buy her shampoo
and mouth words at her.
The literacy coach mentions
“She doesn’t do her work in class.”
It must be my lessons
why aren’t I more astringent
about expectations?

You start to get mad
when the obese kid,
who saw his dad shot and killed,
writes about it sometimes
but mostly wanders around the room
looking for someone
who will pay attention.

You start to get mad
when this kid keeps repeating this noise
that you’ve rationally explained a million times
is annoying, disruptive, blatantly rude
said on a spectrum of calm to infuriated
to different tunes.
He has a mute brother
who he has to pick up
everyday after school
so he likes to be loud
he’s even pretty funny.
His mom gets called in,
she cries
at a meeting
where we all trip over ourselves
to provide useless solutions
for the under-aged, over responsibilified
who probably just wanted to scream.

I start to get mad
when I wonder how they even smile
when seven hours of periphery
nearly annihilates mine.

I’m just supposed to teach them to read.

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One Comment

  1. Peter Dubble-Ewe
    Posted October 11, 2009 at 6:47 am | Permalink

    this one is wonderful, wonderfully frustrating and sad

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