I am a High School Teacher
- Apr 14
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 21
By Michael Bazzett
and I’m leery of how my students use
the phrase “true identity" and how
readily they assign the word “random”
to whatever they don’t happen to like
I sometimes point out, gently, that
expectations do not order the world
as much as they create disappointment
and muddle and even when those
expectations happen to be met
the ensuing happiness is nervous
about whether those expectations
have been met quite highly enough
Sometimes I do not come to work
as early as I might because I ride
my old bicycle to a diner instead
where Adriana greets me and asks
if I would like the early bird special
yet again, hashbrowns extra-crispy,
and I smile and nod and feel known
even though this ritual is more like
the simulacrum of being known
than actually being known which
will probably never happen anyway
because I am leery of the phrase
“true identity” and Adriana’s benign
presence is shaded with commercial
impulses yet our exchange feels good
because I rarely know my own mind
because I go alone and tell no one
because this exchange is the opposite
of random and if my life were a hand
it would hold such moments like a stone
Michael Bazzett is the author of five collections of poetry, including The Echo Chamber (Milkweed Editions, 2021) and the forthcoming The Morphologist (Milkweed, 2026) — as well as a verse translation of the creation epic of the Maya, The Popol Vuh (Milkweed, 2018), named by the NY Times as one of the best poetry books of 2018. The recipient of NEA fellowships in both poetry and translation, his writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, 32 Poems, The Paris Review, The London Magazine, and The Sun.
