The Glory Next Time

It’s not every day that the world arranges itself into a poem

—Wallace Stevens

I’m grading papers when a sub jams the copier and I have to fix it while another teacher tells me how unhappy she is, after which it’s third period, and the papers still aren’t graded. My college class, those apples of a teacher’s eye, work diligently on their essays, but Greg’s absent and Brendan arrives to make up a Spanish test. Don’t ask me to add another language to my multi-tasking when I’m teaching, but Brendan just wants to take his test please, so I let him, then duty’s next and if there’s work I relish it’s standing at the foot of the stairs telling students not to go up them when I could be grading those papers.

Taking microwave lunch to judge death penalty debates, I find the kids have fitting quotes, including Gandhi’s: if it’s an eye for an eye, we’ll all be blind. They argue persuasively, the blue and gold autumn noon shimmers outside, and then I run into Greg who puts his arm around me, says I’m his favorite teacher and what does this have to do with why he wasn’t in class, I wonder, him talking about his trombone audition for Loyola but his band teacher, Hammond, says, don’t let him sweet talk you, Ms. Dubrava, and three comp students stop to see if I’ve graded their papers yet. In Brit Lit no one has the homework, so I throw a fit, toss the sonnet plan I spent an hour preparing, demand they hand in something before end of class and because he’s the only one who’s done the assignment, I say Nelson, you’re out of here and he slams his book shut, turns to his friends, says, serves you right, you bastards, which I don’t hear.

Last class not even out of the room when Daughter and Father enter, already testy with each other and the moment I give him the progress report, Dad’s on it: you have all Fs, what about your promises if we let you return to this arts school? His voice is a fist, makes me want to duck, but Daughter comes right back at him: Dad you don’t know what you’re talking about, which is when Mom enters breathless, murmuring about respect and lowering voices. I’ve said nothing yet, realizing I’m a pawn, so I ease in peacemaking comments like, she can get caught up, but they’ve got an agenda. Daughter: you don’t give me a chance. Mom & Dad: we gave you chances, how many chances are we supposed—and ostentatiously consulting the clock I say, if you don’t need me—thinking about the Glory Coffee House poetry reading with immense longing—and Dad, looking at me for the first time, could we have a few minutes? I’m being booted out of my own room, but fine, so I gather my things and Dad: if I have to lock you in your room— Daughter: you always chain me up, ever since you started the divorce— Mom: we’re past that now, Daughter, that’s over isn’t it, your father and I aren’t fight—and I close that door behind me.

The poetry reading’s SRO and another teacher, Painter, and I sign up to read, but Morgan the mistress of ceremonies puts me after Tara, and I hate when I have to go after someone that good and have no new poems, but Maurice comes, the way kids who leave this school come back, and I remember him twelve, round and short, stuttering with excitement over his first mountain trip, get a bear hug from this tall, confident young man in an African turban, feel how rare it is to know a child these seven years of dizzying change. The creative writers read, and I take for granted how good they are, but Painter hasn’t heard them, says wow, they’re better than adults reading at the Merc, and Tara sings her version of Sylvia Plath’s poem, her voice shivering my spine while I recall performing that poem at a Plath informance years ago, the bitter anger of it: so Daddy, I’m finally through.

Setting sun fills western windows, flares behind the stage. Morgan says our next reader is Pat Dubrava and I think oh yes, to be a poet again, and I read my poem but I’m also thinking that Daughter has her Dad’s strong eyes, her Mom’s delicate skin and she may wish she were through with him, but that will never happen, and they may think their divorce is final but it’s not, it won’t be over for years and I didn’t get those papers graded, but it doesn’t matter, because I know I’ll have something new to read at the Glory next time.