A Teacher With a Stack of Lives To Read
paul beckerman
Empathy swells in bags
of compassion under
prematurely aging eyes.
A crossed leg feigns
relaxation under a desk
crowded with students'
lives, their experiences
disguised as essays
and poems. Words
flood spiral notebook
pages, fringes cut off
in haste or left to dangle
like optimism, and dry
eyes soak in the scrawled
confessions of humanity.
Under a worn desk
top, a suspended foot
rises and falls in cadence
with the words like a long,
rusted pump handle trying
to draw up fresh answers
for a parched spirit in
desperate need of priming.
Eyes well up to the
breaking point, reluctant
to go on, but afraid
to stop, fearing that time
will stagnate the pleas
in pools of desperation.
