What Teachers Earn (Day 437)

My thoughts shift, recapturing 

Home. You were scat singing 

by an open window, saying Oops! 

whenever a song veered off in 

an arbitrary direction, 

or your thoughts wandered 

down the darkened street where 

I lingered among a scattering 

of streetlight puddles.

Hearing the neighbors whispering 

in their beds, I learned that 

our teachers earned less 

than the pale, sweaty man 

who managed the dollar-store, 

and considered bursting 

into tears at the brutal, repetitive 

nature of injustice. 

This is what we like: 

Holding hostage those who hold 

all of our knowledge, because 

they are too dangerous to trust

—except with our children’s minds 

and our own vivid future.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: tookapic/Pixabay