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.
poetry
For Change’s Quake
this day, three years back:
an unfair observation
on a testing day.
i thought i was done;
trying to be good enough
was just not enough
and now? full circle–
a grapevine request to see
my expert teaching
from a district head
who saw just minutes of us
(speaking for us all).
now he’s bringing guests
to show others how it looks
to teach ELD
(the irony stings
with my facebook memory–
a harsh reminder)
but all things must change
from weak saplings to gold leaves
that have brought me home
Case of the Mondays
because it’s Monday
the alarm sucks, kids are bored,
and fall won’t happen–
the classroom burns hot
from a boiler turned on
two weeks too early
and everyone thinks
it’s a holiday today,
so here i sit. wait
at the Jiffy Lube
with the rest of the world
panning for oil.
this is white privilege.
this is American life.
black gold that burns all.
This Pussy Will Save Us!
And Then I Remember
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
Short This
ten years ago, as a young teacher,
i would have killed to have such a flawless lesson.
today?
one component makes me feel like a failure.
ask.
ask why teachers leave this profession in droves.
why we spend hours collecting fake data points to try to prove ourselves.
why every damn day they must be
interacting as if their intelligence
could not be shown in another way.
ask.
ask.
screw the introverts,
the six weeks prior of building up talk,
of transition handouts and forced verbal responses and
Socratic seminars.
this day, this day when i have them
writing more sentences in one period
than they’ve written in their entire
school careers,
i am judged as
not even approaching,
not even close to being good enough?
Ask.
i’ll tell you why.
because with all the hoops and all the hopes and all the reasons i came into this career,
some days,
rainy days like today,
dreary and plagued with doubt,
it sure as hell feels more like
an unsatisfactory career
than i feel like an unsatisfactory teacher.
Enough for Today
essay graphic done
by seventy-five percent:
mission accomplished
Falling in Love
autumnal offer:
a windy, sunny lunch stroll
in my favorite park
Over the Hump
piano serenade while cooking
and a collegial shout out to the king
can make a hump day joyful
in this little life we live
Stay Gold
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.
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