By Kathleen Hellen
behind my back—like chatter.
I fade to gray my last semester,
dragging down the hall from elevators
claustrophobic to the closet that’s an office,
a battered suitcase of required texts. I won’t say
I let them down with tired lessons, extra credit
—matrices for answers. The name of that one in a
smart new sweater and barrette, I forget. Those two
waiting at the door like dismal twins of graduation and
retention. What’s cum laude? after dumbing down,
after seniors write in essays of the system’s failures.
Posters bark recruitment in glass displays. Trophies
in athletics. Online courses multiply the choices
they won’t have (all the golden apples!)
Kathleen Hellen is the author of three full-length poetry collections, including Meet Me at the Bottom, The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, and Umberto’s Night, which won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and two chapbooks. Hellen is the recipient of the James Still Award, the Thomas Merton prize for Poetry of the Sacred, and poetry prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review.
