the long walk to school
(meant to calm dreaded return)
backsplashed by moonlight
it lit my trapped way
to judgment i can’t escape
via teenage angst
then came home to lies.
sometimes life is like a cell:
the beginning, the end
yet, there is escape
small moments of truth and love
backsplashed by sunrise
back from mountain views
what that means: laundry, cleaning
organizing life
car vacuumed and wiped
every last load put away
while girls made snow forts
(i know… they should work
i should hover over them
like a copter mom)
but they’ll forget dirt
recall bricks of snow with friends
(happy childhood)
i’ll take on the dirt
if only for one Sunday
(reorganized life)
to ring in New Year
we drove two hours past home
to make a weekend
we saw A-frame views
and slept in with circle flames
before we ventured
he slid us down hill
and we slid in the new year
with sleds, skis, snowshoes
because life is such:
moments of fear, winter ice
and warm flame endings
the New Year looms near
only two resolutions:
make friends with sis; write.
second thoughts run deep
two hundred dollars later
and him always mad
my bestie takes blame
(her kitten was first, she claims)
but this is my fault
how deep does love run?
for my oldest: no-phone prize
for us all: pet love
sometimes i wonder
how hovering hurt runs deep
to pick our pockets
if i could keep her
(and keep his heart with me too)
we’d run through the depths
i took back her phone
she cried for thirty minutes
then emerged from room
a week has now passed
i’ve seen her face more this week
than in the past year
she’s on page fifty
of a novel she started…
to write, not to read!
she plays piano
taught herself Star Wars theme songs
Darth Vader and all
she talks to us now
and plays games with her sisters
just like a child
she is my child
and i’ve ended the battle
that would lead to war
The fire alarm went off just after the minute bell, thirty seconds before finals were to start. I had already arrived early enough to stand in line and sign out my district final. I had taken the time to organize them name by name on every other desk, ready for the students to walk in, find their place, and write their best essay of this semester.
When the alarm blared into our ears, I told the kids what door to walk out. I grabbed my coat, ready to wrap some warmth around this December Monday. I locked my classroom door, thinking about the security of the tests.
And I entered the line. The students-ready-to-give-up line. The teachers-wondering-if-there’d-be-enough-time-now-for-finals line.
And in their arms, like infants ready to suckle? Tight against their chests like their lives depended upon the survival of a few stacks of lined booklets?
Their district finals.
“Where are your tests? Did you leave them in your room??”
Like I had committed a cardinal sin.
And this moment, more than any other, is why I think our society has completely fallen apart. No way our school, our city, our fire department would plan a fire drill the Monday morning moment before finals would begin.
So this could be REAL. We could be walking out of our school into a bitter cold standstill for hours as we wait for the beautiful firemen to rush five blocks in their blaring white truck to SAVE OUR LIVES.
And I left, God forbid, the tests in that damn room.
(Of course it was an error. Of course they were doing construction in the gym that set off the alarm. Of course they adjusted our schedule, making the day twenty minutes longer than planned, cutting into our lunch, our grading time, our collection of children from school, forcing us to stand in line again, forcing our children to stand like common prostitutes on the corner because their mother couldn’t arrive on time, all because of the security of that damn test.)
Of course I’ll give up my planning period tomorrow to catch up.
But I will not carry that test like it’s my baby. I have enough babies. Three of my own and thousands more. Their words are worth more than what the district (the society) asked them to write in sixty minutes. Their lives are worth more than the security of this test.
Our lives are worth more than the security of a TEST.
Someday, I hope, we will realize this.
On the drive home, we are missing our carpool companions thanks to the relentless militarism of their middle school, and I take advantage of this moment to hop skip and jump just shy of downtown.
Me: “We all need books. This is the only library in the city that has Spanish ones.”
I: “I’m only reading this one.”
R: “That’s MY book borrowed from MY teacher that YOU stole.”
Me: “There are 100,000 books here. Can’t you choose a different one?”
Both: “Not until she gives me that one.”
I give up. I take four escalators to the top floor of the library in the center of the city, the epicenter of the Latino world, where I stare down four shelves of outdated, bindings-falling-off Spanish books, trying to find one that is 1) at my level 2) not a hundred years old 3) interesting. What a bunch of bullshit this is. ¡No me jodas!
We ride home in silence. Semi-silence. They read. I listen to La Busca de Felicydad while R groans about my Spanish audiobooks. We sit in traffic and I miss the turn because I’m listening to how a small fatherless black boy has to witness his stepfather beating the shit out of his poor mother whose education was denied by her father so her brother could go to school and I am thinking about how fucking entitled my white children are and how unentitled my refugee students are who learn the new vocabulary phrase, “take it off” and all the girls write, for their “demonstration of knowledge” sentence, “As soon as I get home, I take off my hijab.” Like it’s a burden, a weight, a freedom they wait all day to release, and my own kids are fighting over a damn book.
But bless them all the same. For loving to read. For fighting over a damn book.
And this is America, I think, as we drive past the wealthiest mall with its block of Christmas-lit trees. As R settles into her hopeful view of the book I will leave for her. As I will rise and teach tomorrow, perhaps a new phrase such as, “What gives us hope?” And they will post pictures of their childhood in the refugee camp and my girls will ask me to read them a story (because they’re never too old) and I will drive the carpool home and hope for a better America. One without militarism. Without fear.
With books and love. Books and love. Where we can all learn what it means to “take it off.”
To find a Spanish book on the fourth floor of the library. To read. To give in to sisterly needs. To remember that we are all refugees.
That we all seek shelter. In a book. A drive. A removal of a hijab.
In each other’s arms.
we walk seven blocks
in the semi-melted snow
to visit police
there is no jail time
no judgment of rainbow kids
as they ask questions
an open forum
for them to see the whole truth
(media won’t share)
they talk about peace
how some never used a gun
or even raised one
the kids question them
with patience, honesty… doubt
and they all. listen.
does doubt follow them?
they cast shadows on the streets
in the midday sun
their bright faces grin
pepper me with more questions
upon our return
thanks for taking us
the one thing i need to hear
from today’s visit
(they’ll remember this–
not the snow, the sun–the walk
the walk towards peace, hope)
beef stew takes some time
to simmer while we have fun
discovering home
(it sits in sunlight
on a late November day
waiting to be found)
in stage selections
and modern airport hotels
where we say goodbye
it waits for new doors
open to ideas of
a sunlit autumn
in our house, our home
where thanksgiving starts and ends
all that matters: here
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