Class of 2020

You put in a tape,
you let the horror unfold.
You say this shaped us.
You say this is our history.
You tell us where you were,
when the towers fell.
This is the final class
you will ever teach with students
who were here, crying
in a hospital room all wrinkly
and as raw as the footage
our mothers couldn’t watch while
pregnant.
We have seen people jump
out of two burning buildings
more times than we can count.
We have written exercise
upon exercise about why this matters–
Decorated the halls with crayons on cardstock
of “what hope means to us” inside two
tall rectangles.
It’s a teaching exercise in compassion
for a class you assume has none.
You tell us you stood exactly
where you stand now, ten years ago.
Lesson plan abandoned and you thought
your world was ending. So,
you turned the TV on. And, with classes
full of children, you let them watch.