In high school, there was Mrs. Maria Romero, your Social Studies teacher. Stunning as a movie star. Always wore high heels and tight skirts. Blouse open enough to show cleavage. She tutored Paul Curry in the afternoons. Fifteen and he played her like a brainless ball of fluff. Everybody knew about it long before she was fired. It was a coup for him. Everybody knew. Everybody knows. You are so screwed.
“He . . . he seduced me,” you whisper, feeling the uncontrollable twitch of your mouth. Lowering your eyes, you see the trashcan. The evidence is still in there! Your fingers move to your lips, trying to still them. Your eyes fix on the diplomas hanging in cherry wood frames on the wall, the Bachelor of Arts, the Master of Arts. Fingers convulse, pressing hard inside your mouth, digging deep, until you feel sublingual tissue tear and you taste blood.
“It's not my fault,” you say. “It's not me.”
Goddammit! You should have . . . . You should have what? Been stronger? Been smarter. Been better.
Your mother tried to warn you. Your father, too. “Don't underestimate those high school boys!” they said.
Oh, gawd! Your parents are going to know. Your parents are going to know! Who won't know?
“Kaylee,” you whisper.
You think of last summer when the garden was filling with squash and carrots and basil, the three of you pulling weeds, fertilizing, and coaxing plants to grow. You think of the pruning clippers and how you cut the lateral branches of the tomatoes in half to make way for more sunlight, to make room for new buds – more fruit from God's good earth. In Kaylee's hands were hedge shears, which she dropped point down onto her foot. Karl screamed at you to do something. Kaylee stared at you, and you watched the wail winding up inside her. You watched as she tumbled backwards away from the shears. You watched Karl take her into his arms and lift her. You heard him murmur softly to her – It's okay, baby. Cradled her against his chest. She lay there, blood oozing from her foot, the foot kicking, trying to get away. You were unable to move, the blood making your head swim, your stomach churn, just like it's doing now. Karl running with her to the house and yelling at you to get a grip, you worthless pansy, he could use some help. Kaylee's blood marking a trail to the door. Nauseated, you threw-up on the rosemary. Too late to be of use to anybody.
“Who are you?” you whisper.
You sit at the desk, shake the mouse awake, run your finger across the gradebook on the computer screen. Not that long ago, the school was speckled with students you viewed as children, kids sitting in your classroom eager to learn. Ha! Within a year you learned that most of them possess a sense of entitlement, believing grades are rewards for showing up, not the result of hard work and effort. You watch them warm seats in your classroom, marking time until graduation releases them clueless into the world. You argue with them about the F earned and the C deserved. Then you argue with their parents, school counselors, the principal. Occasionally, there are those who seem to understand the adage Remorseless labor conquers all, who seem sharp, serious and interested in learning something about the human condition—literature, philosophy, history—about poetry. About Yusef Komunyakaa. Which is what drew you to him, that agile-minded sixteen-year-old boy. You believed he deserved extra time and attention. Because he had read Pleasure Dome. Because he had quoted a long poem from it. The line that stuck in your head is still whirling: Out of tide-lull and upwash a perfect hunger slipped in.
3