DaveKemper.net

you thought of me as a crack up   didn’t you
talking out of turn   joking around in class
all play   no work
“Hey, Mr. Kemper, why do you wear that cookie duster?”

remember the times you sent me out of class
or the time you made me stand in the corner
with gum on my nose
oh yeah    good times

and what about the time
you saw me out in the hall    crying

what did that make you think
that I had been hit or hurt
made to feel foolish

or that I was scared to go to my next class
or scared to get on the bus
or scared to go home
or sick of feeling left out

or maybe you thought
I was just having one of those days

it would have been nice    maybe
for you to have found out why I was upset
you being a teacher and all
but that didn’t happen

oh yeah   good times in middle school

you seemed so distant and dusty
like one of those sullen, unkempt boys
in tarnished photographs of prairie schoolchildren

true to form, I kept my distance
having no idea what to make of you
I don’t think anyone did

I can’t remember any of your classmates
purposefully acknowledging your presence
it was as if you weren’t really there–
a phantom, apparition, specter, shade

rumor had it that in part of your house
there were dirt floors
that would have been only fitting

on those occasions when you did show up
any work that you did was nearly unintelligible
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

how would your story have played out
if you had attended a rural school
a century past
learning your numbers and letters
with a few farm kids

you would have struggled there too
but, at the very least, your classmates
coming from the same difficult soil
would have better understood you

and what would it have mattered anyway
either your father or some other farmer
would have had plenty of work for you
work that required a strong back
more than it required reading and writing

you dressed like  Fred MacMurray
complete with cardigan sweaters and pressed pants
in a school in which T-shirts
and blue jeans were haute couture

the piano solo you performed
at an all-school assembly
demonstrated an expertise
that went way beyond
what the other kids were doing

it’s too bad home schooling
or Christian schooling
weren’t options for you
considering your religious
upbringing and all

our school obviously lacked
the faith-based ballast
to steady your way

that is, if the discomfort 
you felt in my classroom–
what am I doing here?– 
carried over to your other classes

without the devotional guidance
that stablized (or at least influenced)
you life on the outside
you were clearly sailing in troubled water

what if I had said
to celebrate romance
will be our next unit of study

to luxuriate in love stories and love poems
“love in a stronger season than reason,
my sweet one, and April is where we are”
to learn about courtship, share crushes

to sing about perfect partners, write romances
let passion drip over everything

that would have caught your attention
at least for awhile

I’m semi-serious about this
because it seemed to me that you
like a lot of your friends
were into RELATIONSHIPS

you had discovered boys
and nothing else mattered much
cetainly not the day to day
tedium of transposing sentences or
reciting irregular verbs

and it  might help explain why you came
into class one day with my wedding ring
that I had lost in the auditorium
displayed for all to see on a chain
draped around your neck

just a prop I suppose
in your current passion play
but a bit cheeky nonetheless
wouldn’t you say