i had a teacher,
a second grade
teacher.
she spoke to me
and told me i would
do great things
she sat with me
on the last day of school
and told me how she
thought about
going back to college some day.
i don’t know when
it happened to me.
at some point you become
a performance of yourself, i think.
a parody.
or at least i had to.
and you have to do it right, because
people notice when you don’t,
even if
there’s nobody home there
anymore.
she had green eyes and the
nicest smile.
she liked my drawings.
she held my picture
to the class.
you have to leave these things
behind.
you have to
bury them in order
to live properly.
at the halloween party
parents were invited
and i was a ninja
and she was a soothsayer with a
crystal ball.
the line to her table was short and when i
got up she
traced the lines
across my hands and
told me i could
do great things.
i don’t draw anymore.
not really.
but i had a teacher,
a second grade teacher
a teacher in the
second grade.