our yard: spring heaven–
filtered crabapple flowers,
burgeoning aspen
red tulips bursting
while puppy and Daddy rest
for Sunday funday
crabapple city
beckons my perfect cycle
through pink and white parks
Backyard Camping
ready for summer
with their nightly hammock fest
childhood remains
Bloom
the once-shiest kid
now a social butterfly
surrounded by friends
KittyPup
miracles happen
when exhaustion hits us all
and we learn to love
Women Will Win
engineering win
for my smart, clever firstborn
showing all those boys
Student Teacher
the docent guides us
through arrays of modern
and native artists
she knows history
as told through the white man’s lips
my students tune out
in the third floor hall
a border touts a blue sky
peppered with soft clouds
in haunted vocals
the artist sings the DREAM Act
as the clouds roll by
my kids find blankets
as thin as Mylar balloons
and read their stories
when my Honduran
says, “Our blankets were warmer,”
the docent’s perplexed
“You mean… You? You crossed?”
“Yes. And they kept me just like this.”
(like rats in a cage)
“Did you come alone?”
her disbieving voice shakes
(new history here)
“Yes… I was alone.”
her honest confession steals
the docent’s lesson
(she, like all teachers
thought she could share her knowledge
only to be schooled)
Subtle Spring
the crabapple bloom
has taken its time this year
to brighten our yard
Live
walk until you can’t
then pull a hundred grass roots
out of the flowers
buy new bicycle
for youngest daughter’s growth spurt
(get new tape for yours)
visit local art
at museum exhibit
amazement beckons
a Sunday funday
filled with every last life lived
in these bright moments
Two-Sided
The Eritrean immigrants asked me, and then apologized profusely when I told them I turned 41 yesterday, for my ID at the liquor store today.
“Just because I am wearing a high school T-shirt does not mean I am in high school,” I attempted to joke. “I am a teacher at a high school, not a student.”
I tried to reassure them. “You’re just doing your job. Don’t apologize.” I hadn’t pulled in an ounce or a sip of wine yet. I carried my Riesling and 12-pack of Blue Moon the six blocks back home, gathering all my steps and burning all my calories before settling into a flurry of Friday tears.
My puppy and my daughters awaited me, pestering me for kisses (puppy) and dinner (teens). Mythili, as always, took charge, grilling pepper jack and cheddar-with-jam sandwiches, heating up our Friday-cop-out tomato soup while her mother paced the living room with her Riesling and screamed and cried, transcript search coming up empty, Facebook chat verifying that sixteen years into teaching, a master’s degree, thirty-six credits beyond a master’s degree, and a three-day teacher strike, had led her all to a salary less than what she’s making now.
The form to verify my “lost” credentials requires a two-sided copy of a transcript that I hand-carried six years ago and placed in a human resources officer’s hands.
The waiting period for the said transcript, if ordered today (done) from the university is fifteen business days.
The time I have to post a double-sided grievance to my school district is thirty actual days.
On the backside of a transcript is a watermarked imprint of how any given university determines eligibility. A description of credits. A copyright. A promise of authenticity.
But no. Actual. Credits.
Words.
Truths.
My school district, my world, our America, is two-sided.
Get your education… so you can pay loans for the rest of your life.
Advertise (through movies and media) to the world how attainable the American Dream is… until anyone with a skin tone darker than Northern European comes and realizes that slavery is real, present, and unforgiving.
Jump through every damn hoop to save a section of your soul with 150 kids every day… just so that bureaucracy can take it away.
Upload your life into a system so unforgiving that you will wonder why you teach… Until, two sides later, you remember why you teach:
Your daughter dancing with the rainbow of humanity at this high school.
Immigrants’ voices sharing their poetic souls all day long so that even the most disengaged students put their phones away. 
Students celebrating art with as much gusto as cheering on the soccer team.
How two-sided the soul becomes when asked, Why do I teach?
Why do I put myself through this constant criticism?
Why do I accept such a pathetic salary?
The answer is two-sided.
Because I love them more than money.
Because I spent the money to be here with them.
It’s not really a coin or a toss. It’s just the other side of the story.
I Remember Columbine
I remember newspapers for a week filled with grisly details,
journalists flooding our city like vampires in search of storied blood
I remember crying all day on my twenty-first birthday,
the tears permanent streaks of worry on my cheeks.
I remember thinking, How can I become a teacher now?
and, Nothing could be worse than this.
I remember that it was ten miles from my home,
with faces just like my own now plastered on screens across the world.
I remember thinking that it could never happen again,
that with this media spotlight on the atrocity, it wouldn’t.
I remember my first lockdown, two years later,
kids huddled alongside me under desks like rats in a sewer.
I remember the silent votes of every white man and woman
in charge of our devolving society that grips guns like lifeblood.
I remember clutching my six-year-old child for hours
after twenty of her American peers were murdered
for the love of the Second Amendment.
I remember living in Spain where the scariest sound
was an infantile firecracker celebrating El Día de San Juan
and every door was open for the world to walk into
what it might be like to Not. Be. Afraid.
I remember when I once believed that someone would shout,
Enough is enough! and Congress would listen
instead of filling their pockets with NRA dollars.
I remember my high school in the ‘bad neighborhood,’
before a police officer stood at the door,
before I’d ever heard the word lockdown,
before I even knew what we would become.
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