Poet & Teacher

I hear kids loitering
the hallway
I listen
something bubbles
about the back corner
of the schoolyard.

I go to the door,
eyes scatter.

I call over Isaiah
ask, “Something going on?”

“Nah, we’re cool.”

“You stay away from it, you hear?”

“Yes miss.”

I go for help
but everyone has gone
home
already.

Down the hall I tell
the science teacher.

“Want to know what I really think?” he says.
I start to walk out
without the nerve
to say no
so he shouts
“It’s 3:10
not my problem,
not today.”

Back down the hall,
two kids try the office.
Kids from another school
surround the school they say
another teacher casually listens.

He tells one kid he’ll walk him home.

“Nah, I don’t need to be lookin like some fuckin pussy
walkin outta here with no teacher.”

“Oh.”

I offer the same to the other
and mumble
“Not that I’d be of much use.”

I’m told to call the guidance counselor instead,
and I do,
but surprise,
he’s left the building too.
He tells me nonetheless
to go downstairs
I’ll find a security guard there.

She’s slowly standing when I say,
“Excuse me, some kids are concerned
there’s some people waiting for them …”

“Dumb kids
should have told me earlier
it’s after three,
my shift’s over.”

“Oh” I say, “Well whose on next?”

“Not here yet.”

“Well isn’t there something we can do?”

“You let them tell you
your problem now.
I don’t let them tell me things.”

Then she trudged down the stairs.

Back upstairs the kids have gone.

I go to put my head in my hands

blue
with exploded marker.

He said,
“Can you cry from a headache?

“Definitely,” I replied.

“Can you cry from nothing?”

“Well, you might think it’s nothing,
but deep down, maybe … ”

“Oh,” he said,
then looked down.

“Do you cry often?”
I asked

“No,”
he retorted,
too fast.

“Oh,”
I said. “So, do you want to work on the vacation packet?

“No, I have a headache” he replied.

“I cry often too,”
I tried.
But not that often
and not that way,
(we both knew).

Today somebody broke
his grandmother’s rosary beads.
His beads, he, who
is a talented artist first,
has a headache second,
and lives in foster care too.

He says “Thanks” before he leaves
I wonder what for and smile
meaninglessly,
wishing it could mean
more.

“I can neither confirm nor deny
anything about A.C.S.”

Please don’t leave a suicidal child unattended.
If they’re homicidal let them run. Ha ha. Silence.

If there is a fire in the building
or a bomb
on the L train
you will be directed to do certain things—
shut your doors—
the intercom system does work
after all
in certain rooms.
We’re working on it.

Code blue—a kid’s down.
Some of us are pre-C.P.R. trained.
Some of us aren’t.
Someone will come.

God forbid one of our teachers or students die,
it is not an immediate crisis.
But there will be counseling set up.

Don’t speak to the press.

You will be given a copy
of the plan.

I read
him a poem
and he said
“You read your poems
like you
hate yourself.”
I turned red.

I read you
a poem
and you said
“Read it again.”
I turned pink
and read it again.
“Again,” you said,
again.

I am moving.

My stepmother’s exercise
weights do not fit.
I leave them unpacked.
(I’ll find room for them
somewhere, somehow.)

Suddenly I am standing —
the corner, you and your friends
13 and cliquey.
I am happy to see you
this is just like class
except we’re on the streets
and you’re excited to see me.
You write hurriedly on chart paper
I pull from my carpet bag, smiling.

My mother’s car pulls up
and the son of the upstairs neighbor
(who had a crush on her)
and I used to baby sit
gets out of the car
and he’s 13 now too
and telling me to hurry up
“Put your things
in the trunk,” quickly filling in
“We need to take the pictures,
just like last year,”
but his voice is this distant sound
dust shifting really loud,
and I keep asking what he means
when he starts yelling at me
“How could you forget?”
I’m still dumbstruck looking around
when his father steps out and starts yelling
and then my mother too
who I try to tell
that the weights really have to go in the car.
“But there’s no time,” she tells me, “There’s no time
we have to go take these family
photos,” I wrack my mind and still
I don’t remember,
this didn’t happen, this isn’t how it goes,
I’m starting to know
this doesn’t make sense

when a feral cat climbs out of the car.
I manage,
“Really, with us? We have to take this?”

But just as it’s about to attack
one of you
I grab it
mid air,
time seems to slow.
My old apartment fades
from the periphery I see
someone pick their son up
from the corner
“You coming back next year?”
he shouts.
“I’m kinda busy”
I think (feral cat still on hand)
but say “Of course,”
and he shakes his head
that way adults do
when they think “Oh you still
you can make sense of all this.”
And I want to scream,
“What am I supposed to do?”

Tall men on the corner overshadow you,
it’s getting dark
my hands are full
“I’m sorry,” I say
waking up.