A Page Full of Itself

In Bowman Hall,

the radiator knocks through Ethics.

We underline justice

until the word goes pale.

Snow locks down North Adams by four.

On Main Street, the old bank’s doorway

holds a man folded into himself,

coat stiff with ice.

My phone vibrates.

Breaking news.

I silence it

because class has started.

Participation counts.

On the screen: William Butler Yeats.

“We make, out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric…”

Later, we polish John Rawls

like silver.

Behind the veil, everything is fair.

Behind the veil, we are innocent.

We like it there.

We take apart the nation

with careful, bloodless hands.

In Washington D.C.,

they redraw the lines again.

Red. Blue.

Clean cuts.

The defense budget passes quietly.

We fund it.

Some percentage leaves me

and does not come back clean.

I walk past the doorway at dusk,

mutter something about systems,

feel my mouth fill with theory.

I write a poem about it.

My voice fills the page.

The page stays full of itself.

…“we make, out of the quarrels with oneself, poetry.”

My tuition posts at 2:13 a.m.

I pay it.

Represented by men who have never

waited for financial aid to clear.

A child

learns our country

as a sound overhead.

We call it policy

Tomorrow, we'll workshop Change.

Hope is a discussion post due Sunday.

I will speak clearly.

I will go home warm.

The radiator will keep knocking.

No one will answer.