I'm so Cheesy

While talking to a student
whose thesis work is
a term late

I encourage her
to make it better,
to tweak her game-

-it's a home run!
you're in the home stretch!
(She's one of our softball players.)


*

Après le diner

It's nothing, really.
But, I can tell

our week's dinner
from the small aches

the burns and scalds,
and nicks they wrought.

It is the half-eaten plate
that brings heartache

*

I may never say this again...

For the second time in as many months
I had a poetry reading

First at the MLA meeting in Jan
And today at the college

I'm a bit aghast at this unseemly
and narcissistic frequency

*

"Innerview"

We talk about
diurnal longitudinal
repositories of
emotional artifacts

one of which is
curiously draining
out of my brain
and into my curriculum

_

The Odds...

What I wanted to say

when 

the student disputing 

their course grade

realized 

that I did everything 

ethically possible to help.

_

A New Generation of Hope

Nu's very stern letter to Gov. Snyder.

I didn't think her line, "This is the last time I'm telling you,"

would be conducive to a dialogue.

_

Elections 2016

This or that--
I'm running away or
slowing/throwing down

in uncanny dashes
to interpret patches
of plaster and verse

But words in my mouth--
a delicate wheel of anger
will--still--demand love

_