Travis has already been moved
at the semester and third quarter
from two other teachers on the English staff.
Now, administration thinks it’s my turn
to give him a “fresh” start.
He comes to school to take up space
and see his friends. He is unprepared
and doesn’t care. He has no intention
on bringing pen, pencil or paper.
If Travis finds he needs some, he’ll borrow
from anyone sitting around him.
Once class is done, the assignment will be
in the waste basket, the pencil
on the floor.
This is the kid that in the middle of class
will get up and walk into the main office
or counseling center. Sometimes, he will
ditch his class to wander the halls
playing hide and seek
with campus security.
He’s been found behind the pottery kilns
in art class, and hanging out with friends
during second and last lunch.
Sitting in a meeting with five other teachers,
the principal, vice-principal, and counselor,
we discuss for a full hour
why Travis keeps acting out,
until every theory is exhausted.
The principal states he doesn’t understand
Travis’s motivation. And then it becomes clear.
“He doesn’t know. He’s never been told.”
The counselor is too chicken to say anything,
and that’s when I break confidentiality,
“Of course you realize both his parents
are in federal prison.” Everyone is astonished
as if I pulled an iguana out of my hat.
And that’s when the counselor divulges
Travis’s mother is expected to get out next month.
The counselor demands to know
where I got my information,
which is a dumb question, because
she doesn’t remember she told it to me.
So instead of throwing her under the school bus,
I say, “I do my detective work.
I’ve talked to his earlier teachers.”
Now that the ice jam has exploded
and the current of information
flows once again, we can stop
wasting time.
It’s all about control.
Travis will do whatever he wants
until someone stops him,
because he can’t stop his parents being incarcerated,
can’t stop living in foster care,
can’t stop the nightmare of insecurity.
Mark Thalman is the author of The Peasant Dance, Catching the Limit, and Stronger Than the Current. His work has been widely published for five decades. His poems have appeared in the Paterson Review, The MacGuffin, and Pedestal Magazine. Thalman received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon.
