Porcupine Literary
A journal by and for teachers.
Photo courtesy of Sara Kurfeß
Poetry
Graduation Day
A teacher learns not to expect.
So when a student gifts you his last cigarette
you press it between your fingers
like a pearl harvested from cradling seas.
He swaggers toward the gate for the last time
parading sun-blessed cap, billowing gown
hair stiff, aiming straight up
to stray smoky clouds.
You wonder whether he would indeed
walk away from the next boy
who crosses his path
ponder from afar the shores
where he might find breath
the scents and songs he might inhale
forging the fire in his breast.
When a student gifts you his last cigarette
for days you’ll gaze down
cradle it in your palms
held open like giant mollusk wings.
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By Anna Teresa Slater
Celestial Orbs
You carry all your students
on your shoulders―a conclusion
shared. She kneads my back,
protrusions like budding boulders
nesting on the nook of my neck.
Her palms press down hard, a seer
by touch, her fingers attuned to sub-skin
stress. Rub them out, I beg, like a scratch-
map; she shakes her head. Honey, you can’t
expect me to erase your life’s work
in an hour. I insist, her thumbs
obey. As expected, I am dead
tired, dented, frayed. Are they gone?
Yes, she laughs. I cry, touched by the titan lie.
​
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By Anna Teresa Slater
Philosophy
I dare their pens:
Write questions you hope to explore
―of art, of beauty, of ethics, of death.
Am I an angel?
whispers from the front row, a boy
of typical slouch, of angled swag.
I take a step back, offer parley to the pause,
for the possible piercing of teenage smirk or
teacher taunt.
Am I an angel? he repeats, matter-of-fact.
I am not mistaken. I am prepared for all else:
fate, freedom, other dimensions. Yes, yes, yes.
But this. He looks up at me from his seat.
I need more time, last night’s shots of
single malt dance like blinking targets on my chest.
I look now at his answer. There still
it stares like a bull stalking a red cape:
Like a test I have
to take to get through heaven’s door.
Am I an angel?
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By Anna Teresa Slater
Anna Teresa Slater is a high school drama and English teacher from Iloilo, Philippines, and a postgraduate student in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. Her work is published or forthcoming in Channel Lit Mag, Ghost City Review, Shot Glass Journal, The Literary Nest, Door is a Jar, Song of Eretz, Nine Muses Poetry, and more, and in anthologies by Kasingkasing Press and Hedgehog Poetry Press.