READING STUDENT POEMS.(Poem)

 
   Nearly dead from reading the poems 
   I try to get up, but can't. My legs 
   are numb. Outside the night is cold. 
   I dream of my escape into 
   Canada, to sit in a bar all day and drink 
   beer. I would not even want to fuck 
   the girls, just sit and drink and read 
   the papers. Or I could slit my wrists. 
   There is a poetry of how the blood comes, 
   reckless, out of the wound. The body goes 
   on thinking that its tubes are all intact, 
   the heart does not revise itself, does 
   not falter. Poetry should be like that, 
   drawing the knife over the pale wrist, 
   or setting out at dawn, heading 
   north, leaving it all behind. Instead, 
   I go on sitting here. It is the end 
   of the twentieth century. Children 
   are coming along the lonely road of life. 
   They scribble on the backs of paper 
   bags their love songs to the world. 
   I read them and I weep. 
   I correct their grammar. I correct 
   their spelling. I look at a phrase, I 
   look at it, I cock my head to the 
   side, like Starbright used to do in wind, 
   my dog who died, and try it that way. 
   I say the words aloud. Here are the 
   words I used to tell the story of the 
   brother who died. Here is the wind that 
   blew around the house the night the 
   words came through the phone to tell 
   the troth of how he was no more. 
   My father said exactly, "He didn't 
   make it." My student writes exactly 
   in "Buena Bulldogs": "Mother, aunt, 
   little brother, girlfriend/Four fatalities./ 
   Drunken Driver 502,/Escaped with 
   minor injuries." My head …