A Cycle of Blank Verse Sonnets

For seven working days, I've been a sub
in Mrs. Campbell's kindergarten class.
We read. We play. They fight. I intervene.
I wipe their noses when they're finished crying.
I hold their hands and walk them to the bus.

I make three hundred twenty-five a week,
before the I. R. S., if I get called--
no benefits and no vacation pay--
a halfway-decent gig, but "women's work,"
i.e., far too important to pay well.

I love the kids and know them each by name,
by aptitude, by personality.
I know that they are good, and tell them so...

I come home tired and open up the Trib'.


The headline reads: "BOY, 6, ACCUSED IN KILLING."
--The dead girl's wide-eyed thin-line almost-grin.
(I know which words she might know how to spell.)
Two mothers praying in the parking lot.

"...The victim had yelled at 'BOY, 6,' for spitting,
a classmate told Associated Press.
Authorities, though, claim it isn't true..."

We teachers all fear grief and death and blood
--for our careers, the kids, our sanity;
but as a sub, at sixty-five a day,
I only have compassion to invest:
High risk, high yield. And nothing guaranteed.

It could so easily have been our school.
I won't say it can never happen here.