Career Day
Any questions? I ask,
________________after my brief lesson on how to field-
____________dress a hare with one
slit from neck to hip.
___________________________I’ve draped the slack body
on a wooden drying rack at the front of the classroom
and it is dripping onto the towels
_________________________________I’ve laid beneath.
I brought dark towels, to avoid stains. The children
are quiet.
__________Oh, come on, I say, There is no such thing
as a stupid question,
__________________________just stupid people! Finally
one girl raises her hand.
Can you tell us where the mind ends and the world
begins? __________________Ah! A philosopher, I say,
playfully brandishing the freshly-cleaned blade
_________before I wipe it once more on my corduroys.
Well, I don’t know the answer to your question, but
I’m going to keep talking
________________________________________because I
am a grown-up
________at the front of a classroom. And you, little girl—
What was your name, again?
__________________________________I don’t have one,
she says, I was a wild
____________________hare until just a few minutes ago.
And then she explodes
__________from the room, her white tail
_______________flaring
_______________________above her hindquarters—
MICHAEL BAZZETT is the author of three collections of poetry, including You Must Remember This (Milkweed Editions, 2014), Our Lands Are Not So Different (Horsethief Books, 2017), and The Interrogation (Milkweed, 2017). His work has appeared in The Sun, The American Poetry Review, Threepenny Review, The Iowa Review, and Ploughshares, and his verse translation of the Mayan creation epic, The Popol Vuh, (Milkweed, 2018) was longlisted for the National Translation Award and named “one of 2018’s ten best books of poetry” by the NY Times. He lives in Minneapolis.
Comments