Knucklehead Learns a New Word

I'm sorry it wasn't till the end of the year

that I asked you to write about yourselves.

You filled pages in May and June, my arm

and wrist were sore from writing

wow and oh my goodness in the margins

as you shared stories from your lives,

about the times you fell in love

or lost somebody or learned to ride a bike.

And so many of you wrote about your mothers

as so many of the boys and girls I've taught since

have written about their mothers.

To my mother, for my mother. I've read these words

over and over for fifteen years and still

they move me. And that year, my first

time craning my neck to read them, I didn't

understand how holy it was, what I was doing,

holier than the masses I attended

at the mission, than the confessions I made or the readings

I assigned you: Dante and the Bible and Huckleberry Finn.

I wasted so many words and days, bleeding

the clock down, forcing your silence. When you broke it,

Ay Maestro! You would say. Tell us something new.

Now I can't remember anything I said. I remember

it felt strange not to know what word would come

next. I remember thinking I did not like

letting go control.

And on the radios blasting as I walked home I heard

Pasame la botella and you singing along

Voy a beber en nombre de ella

and whizzing by me too on the bikes

you'd long since learned to ride.

Ay Maestro! Ay Dante! you'd call out,

A smile and a laugh at my nickname

but yes, even the snicker's a grace, I realize now.

I don't have the yearbook anymore from '05-'06

but I bet some of you do, some of you

were on student council, right?

Put us back in touch.

I want more than regret

for my first seven months as your teacher,

want more than the cliché—you gave me

more than I gave you—that's not enough

though it's certainly true. There's another,

maybe better: Words can travel a thousand miles.

And what I'm thinking about now

is the 5 or 10 or 20

your mothers traveled for our first

parent teacher conferences. How nervous

I was, and did not know yet

how much you loved them.

For the Spanish speaking I knew enough

to say es un privilegio a enseñar

a su hijo. It is a privilege

to teach your son.

Even then, slow as I was to see

how holy it all was,

I saw that. Privilegio. I say it still

in Spanish that hasn't got much better,

to parents of boys and girls

who speak that tongue. Es un privilegio.

Privilegio. PRIV - IL - LAY - HEE - OH.

the word lighter in Spanish than English,

floating through tongue and teeth.

I learned it, among many other things,

my first year, with you.

Source: Knucklehead (Nodin Books, 2021)