By Larry Narron
As soon as my students are finally
occupied, the power couple of
the month comes barreling
into my classroom, obliterate
the temporary modicum of silence.
Among other things, they interrupt
an email in which I'm attempting
to respond to another concerned
parent's inquiry into the redeeming
value of The House on Mango Street.
The star-crossed pair would like to know
whether I'm currently
in any bromance with a teacher.
Or, if I prefer, they can just interview me
about some favorite celebrity
crush from the Nineties.
For a moment at least, I imagine how
Neve Campbell could take up
half a page of the yearbook,
could be immortalized
for all future Mustang alumni.
The soon-to-be-crestfallen one
keeps snapping pictures—of me,
of my students, of their trap beat
sonnets that plaster the walls.
Bathed in the camera's flashes,
a few kids begin to emerge
from the smeared margins
of their dialectical journals.
Donovan looks up from his response
to that scene in The Outsiders
when the Socs try to drown Pony-
boy in a puddle. He frowns
when the camera is pointed his way.
There must be some kind
of cringe yearbook theme
that can soothe us, something about
how we're all just making waves
while surfing the bodacious winds of time—
as if that alone could console us
from this water torture of days.
Larry Narron is a poet and teacher from Southern California. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Phoebe, Bayou, Hobart, Booth, and Sugar House Review, among others. They’ve been nominated for the Best of the Net and Best New Poets. Larry’s first chapbook, Wasted Afterlives, was published in 2020 by Main Street Rag.
