Phlebotomist, Poet, Students, and Teacher

Her smile

her thick-framed glasses

her short black hair

over her dark skin

She's from Sudan

drawing the blood

in an Iowa clinic

telling a poet

he should make money

from his poems

The answer for most

would be yes

hell yes

yes dammit

Poets aren't remembered

for their bank accounts

in a chain of banks

or how much they leave

their families après croak

Just one poem survives

for most who write

It might not be

their best poem

All any poet should want

is to have a junior high kid

ask the teacher in 500 years

why

they should have to read

this stupid old poem anyway

One day a student will ask

this as the teacher points

to a poem on the glowing screen

“It's old English,” she'll say.

Then the teacher will be

beaten and robbed

just minutes before

the third nuclear war

Barry G. Wick