[Newspoetry] 4th draft of Senseless Violence Double-Sonnet (fwd)

[Paul Kotheimer]

[sorry to be inconvenient about the revisions, here, friends and
neighbors, but i wanted it to be just right for NewsPoetry.com!!]

love paul

+++++++++++++++++++++++


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.

paul kotheimer
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