Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry

The accent made it difficult to take offence
South Carolina – clear and low
slow poured caramel
even the mundane sounded sensual.
Once in class relating a story
she said in direct quotation, “fuck you.”
And blushed
the men in the room melted. They wished.

Confession
her smile a painted backdrop
warm
the span exactly right
not too narrow, not too wide.
Bored adolescents. Lessons unravelling. Disdainful associates
perhaps teaching was not the right career.

A pause. The smile switches to soulful
abandonment seemed the obvious course
perhaps some valedictory comments?
The smile is put on full beam.

“Some issues of personality
prohibit stepping out of self
switching between educator and entertainer
a rather grave disadvantage for a high school teacher.”
The smile dazzles.
But
a feeling of having been sent to war without a gun.
The smile retreats. She doesn’t understand.
An explanation that preparation may have been inadequate
the instructor somewhat remiss.

The vamoosed smile.
Blank…. Mission Control has lost the feed
….. a scrabbling pause
backup kicks in.
Her role is not to teach teaching
but to provide a toolbox
into which a classroom teacher should dip
and select the appropriate tool.

It was difficult to ridicule the ridiculous
spoken in such beautiful tones.

Everybody was very young
careers and address yet to be urgent
status for a boy : notches on the bedpost
for girls
the resistance to becoming one.

He was a kind of godfather to us
considerably older
but not old
a person who suspended judgement
or disguised it well.
Gentle and appealingly bedraggled
he seemed mystified at the worldliness of the world.
A sweet daughter and mad hatter wife
completed a triangle of eccentricity.

We were delighted when he entered business
it was for the customers he said
money wasn’t important. We willed success.
A member of our self appointed importance
became his first employee.
We were envious of the favour that fell
workload was higher than imagined.
Still, the cause was good – God’s work.

Later, some muted disquiet between the two
the owner worried out loud
his former employee had navigated turbulent waters
young people do…. vegetables to the desert of youth
just a sweet kid – needing some time out.

As is frequent in the yacht race of life
participants clustered at the start
scatter on the ocean of opportunity.
Back in port many years later
stories abounded of shipwrecked employees.

The reply was chilled and authoritarian
sharp correction of erroneous belief
a reprimand
part rebuke – part retort
the tone used to impart what should not be forgotten.

She said she wasn’t a smoker.
As someone who never had
I could smell the lie
a lie that wasn’t
but makeup applied to a disfiguring blemish.

By Ecclesiastes there is a time for everything
and nicotine’s reign of cool had passed.
Denial of vice wasn’t the point
emphasis of strength was.

She was my successor
I had confessed regret
regret at meager return on investment in change.
Workplace esteem
so often a fugitive from truth, confided failure
equating efforts at change to squeezing water.
It came to willpower she said. Said she had it in abundance.

Willpower coughs at tobacco weakness
the whiff of imperfection.
Brief absences returned with nicotine’s exhaust
require listened away from inconsistency
an author reviewing their own work
the ascendancy of purity over disclosure
a matter of selection.
The difference between an obituary and a eulogy.