Her fingers are a blur
on the keys.

She writes with a confidence
that is so subtle that
it remains a secret
even from she who owns
it.

She gasps, chuffs, and
bemoans her anxious state,
but she never stops
typing.

After a bit, she pauses to ask
my, as editor, opinion.

She reads her answers to the questions
asked by the student-teacher essay exam.

I hear her read aloud.
I also hear her self-doubt,
her dissatisfaction.

She reads those answers to me
and hates them a little.

For the life of me
I cannot see how.

The words that she’s
written sit on the page
like cinder blocks of truth;

obvious examples of what
she has learned,
what she knows,
what she is now teaching
to some of your children.

Maybe I grind off
an edge by changing
a word or two.

Maybe not.

She writes like she lives,
like she knows,
like she loves,
like she’ll teach.


I wouldn’t change a thing.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017