英语巴士网

Juvenile Hall Teacher

分类: 英语诗歌 
   by Timothy Dekin

    Back from a 12-hour pass,

    My student lays her Camel on the desk.

    The thin smoke rises in a rope that flutters

    A little to her breathing, and her look

    Beneath makeup like crayoning is not

    The scared look of the cornered animal

    I have prepared for, but a knowing smile.

    Maria's twelve, a prostitute,

    And tortures pets from curiosity.

    Trailing her sleeping bag from one abandoned

    Building to another,

    Like a comic-strip Linus with his blanket,

    She's come home forever

    To serving lines and dayroom television

    And parents with solid black ties.

    I yawn, tell her to put the cigarette out

    And go and wash her face——

    Maria with the tear

    A cellmate tattooed on her cheek,

    Bleeding before she has begun to bleed.

    I offer her the chance to be like me,

    Adult, in institutional repose.

    Instead, she pulls her blouse up,

    Sticks her prepubescent breasts out, her idea

    Of a taunt? A sin?

    I'm touched,

    But when she grabs my phone,

    I lose it.

    "Give it back!"

    I almost shout, You little bitch.

    When she shakes her head no

    And hides the phone behind her back

    I grab the cord coiled around her wrist

    And jerk hard.

    Being on her knees only makes

    Her smile more mocking:

    We both know what I am

    Behind my desk, in my teacher's coat and teacher's tie,

    With my pose of weary composure——hell's appropriate

    behaviour——

    A synonym for despair.

    Calmly as I can, I reach

    My hand out for the county's property,

    While Maria, raking my forearm with her nails,

    Gives me one more chance

    To be myself.

猜你喜欢

推荐栏目