with genuine tears
she breaks the bad news: yellow.
an ugly color.
she gives hope to green
for this year’s judgment of us,
of poor-ranking kids
i know she means it:
i know she knows our hard work
because she’s been there.
on yellow Friday,
with grace i can’t quite master,
she’s won me. again.
that closes the week
with less money, but more pride
to be a teacher.
haunted by nightmares
was how this morning began:
insomniac’s fate
but then he woke me
with the love he always has
(embedded in lust)
and then a work day–
every basket now empty
(this school year’s first time)
and a lunch offer
out in the sun and crowd free
where hope lies waiting
tonight? i’ll sleep well
praying for a fresh new day
of this teacher life
our first troop outing
fall colors, shimmering lake:
friendships arrive soon
i can’t believe our world this week–
surrounded by the same chauvinistic bullshit
my liberal baby-boomer parents raised me up against.
and it’s 2016 and i have three daughters and a man, a husband,
a born-and-bred Southern Baptist-raised Tennesseean, whose thoughts couldn’t enter the realm of filth so flippantly tossed
into the national spectrum
and we have a First Lady
who should be our Queen
whose words get twisted on my newsfeed within twenty-four hours
by. A. White. Man.
and i want to grab the world by its ears and shake some sense into it and put him in a swimming pool at age thirteen and have a hand slide up into his swimsuit.
and put him on a bicycle at age fourteen and on the middle of a spring day have a creeper follow him home and chase him into an alley and expose himself to him.
and i want to put him in the college library at age sixteen and have a stalker creep up behind him trying to reach up his shorts when he’s just searching for a poem by William Blake.
And I want him to go fuck himself and his white male privilege that I have never seen in my home–the home of my birth or my marriage–even in all its whiteness
And I want him to feel that terror of being female. Because every woman I know has had icy blood running through her veins in those moments of harassment and assault that have plagued us for all of time.
But he won’t. Trump won’t apologize and he would argue till the day runs dark, and all i can do is pray to a god i don’t believe in that my three daughters don’t face the same fate. That they will find a home as safe as mine with a man as good as my father or husband and a world better than the one we have set before them now.
Because it’s all i can do. Because i moved away in the pool and told my father about the flasher and left that library.
Because i’m writing this now and somewhere in the world eyes are reading it and taking one moment to hear that terror slip out of my veins and transform into the truth that makes me Silent. No. More.
This. This is why I teach. For three years she’s been in my class. She has gotten married. Had a baby. But she still can’t decode words. She still struggles with basic sentences. I know she has more going on in her mind than Bambara and Mali and motherhood, but I haven’t found a way to reach this girl. I haven’t been able to communicate with her in a way to help her understand. But “reliving” 1880s farm chores today, she said, “I got this. We do this in my country.” And today, today, today, she was the best at something. This. This is #whyiteach
a kitten in lap
as autumn weather sets in:
better than the beach
from this flight: find light
carry it twenty years past
your flight-or-fight life
through the turbulence
of youth’s wanderlust wonders,
past career questions,
into the blue sky
of a healthy tomorrow
shined by little grins.
find the golden light
carried by heavenly wings
that kept you on Earth.
happy fortieth,
twenty years without cancer,
and still shining bright.
a lonely park walk
can rejuvenate the soul
(my soul needs flowers)
it isn’t church,
but a Sunday morning sunshine ride–
a line of bikes glistening in waning summer heat,
with shout-outs as loud as a preacher who
calls his parishioners to God:
Bike up!
Bike back!
Slowing!
Gravel on the path!
Car up!
Clear!
the words trickle down the line,
heated breaths repeating them
so loud that even prairie dogs
stand at attention to hear.
and we wrap ourselves
in blue-sky calorie burning
led by a fast-paced 78-year-old man,
just as forgiving for our
missed turns and flat tires
as the best of His missionaries.
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