What's Good?

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WHAT’S GOOD?


Another sophomore says he’s looking

forward to the weekend. I tell him one time

I was looking forward and was stung on the nose

by a hornet. Sometimes I dream of swatting

students on the nose when they say dumb shit.  


It’s a Monday in September, and I want 

to scream, Look around a bit,

y’all! Don’t you want to slip off your shoes

and stay awhile? But who knows what Hell

he knows, what promises from the false god 

of Friday he’s sunk his teeth into, hoping

to sound an abyss whose ground 

he’ll never find. More likely, though, 

just another knucklehead speaking his mind. 


You can get a mean crick in the neck 

from all this craning I start to say, 

then stop. Hell, who doesn't want to slip out

before the bell? And sure, I want them to learn to be 

present, but at the end of the day  

it’s nothing more than a sophomoric discontent

for a home further away than Friday that offers us 

even a squatter's chance of being here

with any kind of purpose.


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