This shift from fall to winter
Is the cruelest month:
Long days and nights
In a blather of responsibility’s
I hoist from a murky hole
And sort and sift
On a messy desk.
I pity my students who tremble
My red pen of vengeance;
Who wait with fetid thoughts
Freighted by what they did–
Or didn’t do.
I hear the stern words of parents
Parsing my elliptical thoughts
When all I really need to say
Is he or she gave a damn
Or didn’t.
But “why?”
Why is what they
Need, want, plead
Beg almost, to know
What they already do.
