Poet & Teacher

Let’s meet at the blank
and smile like tourists
at monuments imbued with where
we read wrote
drank smoked
skipped kissed

Let’s sit on the steps
and recollect moments
late hazy unsure
about who we were
careful to misstep
and avoid remembering
too much
hope
-
A mom fancy footworks with her daughter
the heels of once was on stage

We are never the same as we were
though we were there together

Hope lingering
in these in betweens
-
Nebulous glances
forgotten songs

Overtime the experiment is more and more controlled
decreased odds of a nuanced cat call
upper crust subtle looks dissolved

In the hungover morning of now
we blink at one another
as if light could be too bright

The next generation of children plays tag
Not yet sneaking off to glances of their own

And we still blink
our eyes unclosed
nothing too much

just us
-
Be here
this is no game of chess
you are remembered not for what you said
but how what you said made someone else feel

Dear trees so old
What does your witnessed account
tented event
on tented event hold?

The same factions split off
for the same statues
to make some version
of the same
whispered conversations

The catalogues the green must keep

We long for microfiche
though we’ve long lost hope
that it can all be categorized

Only on the worst days we think
it can
-
We no longer plant a garden
but the wildflowers still grow

listen to the love song
of languages
on the subway

listen to the latino boedga owner
who gave my Korean friend free coffee
every morning her first year teaching
when black students at first called her Chink
and later loved her

listen to the Yemeni corner store owners
who bring us children who climb
cafeteria tables like jungle gyms
having never been to
school so unsure what to do
and who search their dumpsters
for the front page
from the day my nephew is born
when I leave work
late to remember
to preserve his arrival

listen to the child from Senegal
who at twelve has only attended school
for a year or two
so speaks some French
but mostly a dialect of Fulani
which is only oral unwritten
and steady he grips the pencil yet

listen to the science teacher who gives
said child a two dimensional image
of the solar system while he teaches the class
Centripetal motion
and privately asks if I think he knows
the Earth is round

The picture is a good idea
I manage
though galaxies are needed we both know

Listen after school the new boy stands
looking down the block
students surround

The egg race begins
baton from French to fulani dialect to translate to English to me
Don’t worry Ms. we got him
He knows how to get home
We think.

No one is alarmed
this is below par for his course

Galaxies I am reminded
exist

Listen
on the State Exams
translators ask
Can we just teach them instead?

We blink
in this moment
in this galaxy
under this star
this is this is this is
where we are
also immigrants

Tell them
We are the descendants
of the bad guys
the conquistadors

Remember to try
to do better
since we are
who we are

1.
A fight on the subway
over stepping on each other’s shoes
Bystanders staring agape
Me shouting

This is not happening

2.
Sounds of a child sobbing
in the stairwell
Just told her uncle needs a liver transplant
and there are insufficient funds to act

What is she to do?

3.
Can I
operate in this rigamarole?
Can I
melt into a soup of words
and not make sense

for a little longer?

4.
Like concrete building blocks
to build a dome
There is a way

but why not a garden?

5.
I wake up and up and up
to here again
in the confines
of the right angles
deemed at 90
Said who?

And when did I stop asking?
When did the spreadsheets start to make more sense?

6.
Filling the spaces of a crossword puzzle
guarantees nothing
and yet
we concede

If not this what then?

7.
Take nothing to scale
Live here
Tell each person you care
Say it matters
when it does

Sense is not meant to be made
Sense is the feeling
when the walls fall away
and you can see a horizon
in a dream you’re having
and there is no danger of waking up
or considering this parameter or that

If Heisenberg had not yet been discovered
and nothing were related
We would be in a field
and do the right thing
Adpot that child
Save those pennies
Hold the hope
of the child in front of us

A petaled daisy
before wind

Like air craves
a container
I would like to be held

Like soda canned
I would like to spill
not just rush
but slow molecule slide
of forever distance
nothing planned

Sadly solid I simply ask
where goes the unsaid?

Silence might like to say
What did you mean?
but it only hangs in the air
Dew at which we marvel
too rushed to comprehend

Physics’ limitations
so stark

It can’t be
just this

Please let it be
something

more

You make me think
If there can be light without fire
maybe there can be fire
without burn
Make the places
sun rarely sees
heard

Worry not about the ship schedule
or where tracks lead
If the dock goes nowhere
and no ship shows
we’ll float
time travel
pre fluorescent
in the dusk
skinny dip

Take me
where the grid
grinds to a halt
into the sea
railway ride me
into the ocean rush
subsumed in nature
so untouched

Relax juxtaposed boundaries
built for restraint
Imagine
everything can breathe
beyond the loading docks
underwater roller coaster
Splash

If you find yourself
lost at sea and see
shiplights shimmer
through thick fog
Believe them tangible
not made up

Read between
the lines
Do not give up