NCTE POEMS

So, thanks to a train delay and my refusal to grade papers even though they were in my bag all weekend, I now have some poems about my weekend at NCTE 2019. . . . . 

WHAT IS THE SHAPE OF AN ENGLISH TEACHER?

She has purple highlights in her hair
A tartan poncho over thick leather hips
She is white
freckled ginger in a lime green sweater
her slim waist sporting tan slacks and sensible heels
She is black
in her Medusa braids and Orioles T-shirt
He is Cheyenne nation
baseball cap on a brain so full of knowledge he
cannot help but be the tall lanky fellow
with the green canvas satchel
some kind of a cross between Fitzgerald and giraffe
They are legion
in their green hair and yellow slicker
and they make
you write
and she makes
you read
and he tells you to
revise
because the first draft is only raw ideas
but next drafts
are you thinking about what it means
to be human
because she, with her petite power suit
and her bleach blond pixie cut will challenge you
to go Beyond the Book
and he, with his tweed jacket and Cuban beret will make you
wait to claim your thesis
until you actually have something to say
and she is walking into the room all Goth-ed out in black
and tattoos and piercings and they
make you connect
Julius Caesar to an article in the New Yorker and
he tells you that
you need more reliable sources
because he can tell you might be tryin' to be lazy
but the
Shape of an English Teacher is chameleon
and transmorphic
because he corrects your grammar
and she says use your voice and
they don't care about your spelling except
to say that you should care
The Shape of an English Teacher is
author
activist
trail guide
coach
She will not call on you.
He always calls on you
They ask you to think
critically
to critically analyze
synthesize
The Shape of an English teacher knows you
because you poured a piece of yourself
into that poem
out in that journal
because she squeezed your hand before you had to give that speech
and he hugged you when that story won the contest
You didn't want to enter
but you did because
They said it was good
and she called you
a Writer
and he said you read so well because you know
The Shape of an English Teacher is
elusive
just like the shape of water
or of love.




THE UBER DRIVER WALKS IN THE RAIN THROUGH THE STREETS OF BALTIMORE

The concierge at the Hyatt asked, "Taxi, Ma'am?"
And she said, "No, Thank you. I'll walk."
But it's raining she realizes, so it seems ludicrous
Because she usually is the driver in the rain
picking up the train bound traveller
But she walks
Tiny purple suitcase wheeling on her side
and overladen grey backpack weighs down each step of the
mile and a half
through the city that someone once said was
a rat-infested terrible place yet
she only encounters friendly people
even the man in the crosswalk who asks for a quarter which
she barely can give him because she's
a teacher and an Uber driver who has no real money of her own
living off the company check for this trip
to a conference with other teachers and
she does feel tired of being dirt poor
which is hyperbole
But not really
 when you think about the debt that has loomed
for seven years because her husband was unemployed for a little too long
but it was true when the man on the platform at Metropark begged
"money, I need money"
She could not help but laugh,
"You and me both, buddy."
"Money, give me money" his Southeast Asian accent thick in his crooked tooth mouth
"Dude, you are asking the wrong person, I'm a teacher. I really don't have change to spare."
Besides his whiskey breath made the teetotaller inside her say
I am not paying for your next drink
but She asked him if he is hungry because
she was eating a granola bar and would give him the rest
as long as he was not allergic to peanuts, which she asks,
because she's a teacher
and he eats the rest of the granola bar even though that really is
kind of her dinner
but that is something she can share like the loose change
she does find in her pocket and gives to the friendly Baltimore man in the crosswalk on the rainy night
who asks if she has a quarter and she gives him 63 cents.
Hoping for a fare on the way home from Metropark
Because the family needs groceries
and the Teacher Uber Driver walks in the rain,
yes, because she wants to save more of the company money
so she can eat a nice culminating meal
but also because the rain and the walking and the
tap, tap, tap
of the purple suitcase wheels
gives her space and time and permission
to think or not to think
maybe just be
on those
shiny sidewalks at night in the city of charm.