Unsatisfactory

You deserve a poem
for your partial proficiency.

You deserve all the words
that you take from our mouths,
that you tell us to tear down
from our walls,
that you banish from our rooms
in the form of literature
(the very thing you dare assess)

for the lock-and-key,
starve-and-dehydrate,
Nazification of a test
you put on a pedestal,
a test they all detest,
for which they could care less.

You deserve a poem
for your unsatisfactory mark
upon the teachers you denigrate,
the teachers you should emulate.

Perhaps I will learn Morse Code,
buy the appropriate paraphernalia,
and send my message over the airwaves.
Would you listen to me then?

Who You Are to Me

Dedicated to my class of 2015

My first-ever group to not only pay attention
to this (too old? unrelatable setting?
boys’ prep school—really?) movie choice,
but let loose your tears of frustration,
your cheers of redemption, at its bittersweet end.

The only students who actually followed my
standardized-test lecture (copying, studying
the notes, underlining passages, reminding
each other on test days the right things to do)
taking the most time—and care—than
I’ve ever witnessed or dreamt of seeing.

The next generation of Americans (lazy?
ungrateful? bored to pieces?) who
will lead our country into a future
(recessed? depressed? unforgiving?)
whose citizens will one day be as proud
of you (hardworking, grateful, dedicated)
as I, your humble teacher, am today.