James Siegel

Teaching Sophomore English

My class sits in a six by six cube,

I read the section of Huckleberry Finn

to them where Pap’s wrath and delirium

tremens cause Huck to fabricate his escape plans. 

They ask, Have you ever cut-out,

do you really want to be here

teaching us while the sun is shining

and feel it on your face when

the bugs haven’t come out yet,

can’t we sit on a sheet pretend

it’s the raft, you can be Jim

and read to us outside

about the simple Mississippi

without tests and quizzes,

making the team,

            PSAT’s,

            being smaller than Freshmen,

just to float like Huck,

loll in the grass…

I remind them of the sun in their eyes,

the wet grass they’ll have to sit on,

the inevitability of black flies,

the hunger of wasps and hornets

until a few switch sides and they argue

back and forth—

            I read in a low tone until they

come back, sedition defeated, Huck

smears pig blood and wishes Tom

were with him—

they start a letter to a friend about

their devious plan to break them out of school

without getting caught.

            *           *           *          

A new student opens the door,

holds some kind of science

project with feathers—

I point to the corner

with skateboards,

softball gloves, tennis racquets,

and track shoes—the new student

folds his greasy wings,

and sits on his hands.

A new admit slip,

program, schedule,

emergency contact form and

its protracted fear

balance on his

knee until I help

                                                                                                him up, open a folding

                                                                                    chair-desk, and give him a copy

                                                                        of Huckleberry Finn—he rolls

his eyes then mimics a smirk

I remember, but can’t place—

                                    an unusual silence flies

                        across the room like

            lost quills.

The class ogles from

behind their blue and orange

bangs, their brand name

t-shirts and cargo

pants, their yanked

down midriff shirts, hiked

up hip-pants—they see

him, blond and too tan

for May. His eyes go from

window to window, beyond

the parking lot. He

feels their singular stare—

answers the murmuring room,

—Icarus, my name’s Icarus. 

Says he’s an exchange

student from an Island near Crete

and I think, where’s the segue here?

The bell rings, I call him to my desk.

—We’re halfway through…

—Already read it.

You like its symbolism:

the river of life, the evil

land of civilization, the avid rogue,

the voice of the narrator,

irreverent innocence, triumph

of the individual—

                                                                                    shall I go on?

—What do you like?

—Triumph of the individual,

            of course.

—Go on.

—Figure it out for yourself,

I got places to be.

—Wait a minute, you can’t

do as you like, we have

rules here.

He grabs his wings, heads out the door.

—Hey! Now, I have

 to call the office.

            I’m calling the office.           

            *           *           *

I call the office.

I write this disciplinary

referral, and when I see                     

him weaving between the cars

in the parking lot, I call

the office. Again.

He falls on his chest, clamps

wings and harness to his back. Rolls up, runs

headlong into the wind. Elbows back

above his shoulders, he crouches, then

like a gymnast leaving the pommel horse,

vaults himself into the air.

I’m still clutching my facsimile

of the original Huckleberry Finn—

it’s the smile; his elation as he took off

revealed the Tom Sawyer in me.