just like this poor limb
reaching from the grave for life
our Girl Scout dream ends
stress
Unhappy Hour
It is a long and teary hug at happy hour
Between friends who share life’s moments–
The cold and the hot, the dark and the light–
And you can see it all in their bright faces
When they pull apart from each other.
So here i am in the dark corner, watching,
The outside of the table jabbing my ribs,
My drink taken away before i’d finished,
My mouth dry and with no one to talk to
And feeling quite like a girl at a middle school dance.
And after everything that i have built up
In the past twenty years–my marriage,
My career, my traveling, my three young girls–
I haven’t built up a friendship that would
Ever offer me such a hug.
The loneliness clings to the edges of my days
As my girls begin to find their place in the world,
Spending all afternoon up the street, online,
Arranging one social event or read fest after another,
Needing me less and less.
And that is why this happy hour stings my soul
As clusters share their weekend party plans,
Their impending wedding reception,
Their last escapade at the dancing dive bar…
None of which have or will include me.
And on year four in this place where my students’ love
Fills my days with hope for a better future,
I still have a longing, an inkling of loss
That trails behind me, wishing i could be someone else,
Someone worthy enough to be a friend.
The Last Conference
at conferences she swings her legs
back and forth, swish… kick
and murmurs her replies,
her set-to-be bragging portfolio of pride
melted into a subtle acceptance
of just good enough
and with all eight eyes on her
she hears the same words
she’s heard for six years:
Talk more.
(when all the world is a whirlwind of noise
and she has the quiet demeanor of one who always listens, always knows)
and the rims of her eyes redden
after hearing the judgey truth too many times, and before a word escapes
her last-year-in-elementary lips,
they’re telling her not to cry.
they beg us then for questions, concerns,
wanting to fill in the ten minute gap that hangs like a carcass between us,
but my words are swallowed too,
behind my own quiet tears,
my own red-rimmed eyes,
and all i can hear is Scout’s voice
proclaiming that school is a lesson in Group Dynamics,
and my girl, my baby, doesn’t fit into that mold.
instead we fill the hallway with sing-song voices
to banter with her older sister,
one year ahead and one million years mouthier,
and my tears melt and her eyes soften and we move on.
we step into the cold autumn night and she clings to each of our hands, unwilling to pull away,
her last-year-of-elementary heart still as soft as six years back,
still my little girl trying to find her place in this whirlwind world.
Debating
if our ballots could
break through this glass barrier
to at last reveal
that moment of truth
found tucked behind subtleties
of words and spirits,
we could change our fate
towards a future made from love
that we’ve all fought for.
so let’s check the box:
bring the true America
back to where hope lives
The Terror of Being Female
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.
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.
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.
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
Step Write Up 