for the first time in years

the weight of the school year’s end

feels more like a feather

than a thousand pounds

 

knowing i won’t see these students again

has little impact on my broken soul

as our summer dreams and summer lives

are burned by bad luck

 

what a failure this year has been

mismanaged, misled, misinformed

with their apathy leaking through

every crack in my broken lessons

 

yet i face bigger burdens

ones all too familiar, trying to tease

what’s left of my youth (and its salary)

right out from under me

 

and so the school year ends

with gray skies, sick kitties, flooded basements,

lost jobs, grieving husbands, debilitating surgeries,

disenfranchised daughters, and dreams lost.

 

maybe it’s more a bird than a feather,

this end-of-year weight,

this end-of-year wait,

this last chance to make things right.