Poet & Teacher

It is easy to write myself through
the view, my bay window
stolid and sprinkled
with familied children and shouts
of “Watch out!”

But here,
scaffolding rises
around lost little lungs;
hammers hacking asbestos.

In this classroom
there is little
one could understand
without being a fly.
(We are all in too deep).

Windows are barred, dirty.
Not seeing out is how it is,
these things just are
(they say) and each day
fewer anecdotes suffice
to explain this disarray.

I could tell you of the morning
someone’s father left, the belled schedule
holding sadness, little bodies shaking,
eyes glazed straight ahead,
lost focus, wanting the will to wage
the mêlée of yesterday becoming tomorrow, today.

Or I could tell you what we read today
“The apple does not fall far from the tree,”
you see? And a small someone, who once wished
for invisibility, whispered,
“But sometimes, after it falls,
it just keeps rolling.”

And suddenly we have suddenly
from somewhere deep inside we laugh
guttural depths, rule breaking,
baffling, brilliance,
where, for a moment, we smile and know
what it is to be home here,
where scaffolding filters
light to a broken system.

For a moment, we know why
to try, desperately, to prism.

We’re in the aftermath
of a paddle passing forward—
growing concentric circles
decreasing droplets, wondering if
you’ve sucked me dry.

It is not this simple,
the seaweed has my paddle,
and the river is no sink.
It continues, and we lack drain
pipes or any attachment
to self, still together.

On the bus home,
I nearly fall in
the portable toilet.

Where did the river go?
This is not the way kissing began.
We tell ourselves this is kindness,
romanticize herons
hidden in reeds.

Nurture knows not
where we went
for the weekend.

In the quiet
we hear sirens,
the city calling,
even time.

I will miss you,
I think, as the bus bumps back
to New York City.

I would like to say,
“I’m unsure
what I did
to offend you
on this glorious
morning”
with an ugly, sarcastic grin.

But you will sulk and say
“But I wasn’t talking,”
and I will say
“But you are now,”
and you will say
“But”
And I will say
“I don’t care,”
and it will not be a glorious morning
anymore.

Except the problem is I do
care, which is why I’m here
at this ungodly hour of the morning
wondering how to make you work.

So you really must
mind your attitude this minute
because I mind
when you don’t,
because you’re better
than that.

You are able to write
the moment your father never came
and still name the day you did well,
the way you taught second position.
You tell me the posture you choose, you know as yes
these moments you learn to have success.

“No, you will not speak to me that way,”
and “No, you may not sharpen your pencil
because we’re here to celebrate mistakes,”
the ink of decisions we make
choices again and again
and I would like for you to choose
to listen to yourself learn,
listen to yourself say,
“This attitude is less than I deserve,
and I will not tolerate
the cheap distraction of bad moods.”

Simply, I want you to write,
to take pen and craft
this attitude today to say:
it is my glorious morning
and I will find a real smile
through these pages.

From two blocks down
I see Marie’s distinctive frame—
the heavy shift from left foot to right
the square shoulders of a coat too big
and a body too frail.

You never know how lucid or not
she might be, shift stepping
towards November’s dementia.

Nobody likes to see an old lady
lost and cold.

In the summer, I thought her sharp,
sitting outside in her folded beach chair,
umbrella above when it rained.

You must know, this is not the beach,
this is a stoop in Brooklyn
overlooking long since paved streets
cracked and simple.

Once a friend passed her
on the way to our place for dinner
and Marie said, “Be a dear and help me
button my blouse.”

And once, my roommate walked her to the nursing home
twenty minutes at her shifted pace
just to find it wasn’t open that day,
then said, “Walk the other way
if you’re late.”

Her daughter lives a few houses down
anyway, there is a gaggle of grandchildren
full of smiles.

She used to work for Ford motor company
and always asks
“How was your day dear?”

We never walk the other way
in spite of ourselves
we learn the value
of being late.

We slow down
to the infiltrating wisdom,
the depressed footholds,
of a Brooklyn stoop.

The honor roll is posted
on dinky, pastel colored paper
un-centered and haphazard
between gold glittered stars,
glue-stick gunk still showing.
Kids chatter excitedly
about making it.

They are responsible for making meaning
I realize at parent teacher conferences
when of the mere 37 parents that come,
every honor-roll student is represented.

What hope do those kids have
who won’t even feel the pleasure
of the half glittered star
and poorly hung, pastel paper,
let alone someone who cares?

An eerie calm is all I’ve managed
a place where someone might think
for at least 45 minutes
that they might mean something.

What if, really, no one has told them that before.
Sure someone once scribbled a little compliment about hand-writing
But who ever had the strength to believe
They could make it. Not just say it
Sure some that could do
But who could through and through have thought you
Yes you could have your name in colors
Who drew attention to the blank
Your name could have filled
Who wasn’t scared to say, “Even if I see no way
I will make the time today to not
pretend and really say,
I know not how, I know not where
But I see your soul, and I see it clear
that there are moments
of deepest grace when your eyes flicker
and I know the deep disgrace of you not knowing
that you are eleven
so only eleven, and all things are
impossibly possible.

If I could hold that disbelief
and suspend you
I know you could fly.