Teachers
Last night we graded tests
propped on pillows sipping tea.
Before I yanked the lamp chain
I looked over at you, clipboard
tipped out of your hands. Tonight
it’s several sets of term papers each.
You squint in a cone of dusty light
bracketing paragraphs while I slump
among my own neat stacks. Through
a crack in the bamboo shade I see
car beams prowling around the lawn,
disappearing, and it’s dark again.
They have reminded me of the night
I climbed the ticking fire escape
and we talked till morning about
the man in the moon, his lamp, his dog,
walls reddening, pickups revving below,
a school bus shoving to a stop, how
I thought it might miss us, that
angel of unlimited opportunity
tilting its plume at designated doors
where children get lectured not to care
and, tracing over and over capital A’s,
give up their impossible lives.
© Terence Culleton
Terence Culleton has published poems in a wide variety of journals and reviews. He’s a multiple Pushcart nominee, and several of his poems have been featured on NPR. Mr. Culleton’s third volume of poetry, a collection of sonnets entitled A Tree and Gone, is out through Future Cycle Press and has been featured on the New York Review of Books Independent Press “New Releases” list. It’s available on Amazon or through his website: terenceculletonpoetry.com.
The Loch Raven Review 