by Frederick Pollack
I am not judged grotesque enough
to present an overview,
so they give me a slice of it
and a promising young class. Who during
our months in that room abandon
rebelliousness and humor
(I numb them with examples
of the pointlessness of each). By
midterm they've started to imitate --
unconsciously, not mockingly --
my speech impediment, tremors,
and stoop. Embrace the chance
to put on little skits
interpreting death marches, the sack of cities,
the terrible dances
in gas chambers, the tortures and languors
in dungeons of various eras. Some still want
to be the Inquisitor, the dude with the whip,
the consultant in his office, but that fades --
not only, I'm pleased to say,
because I disapprove. My best monologist
is a girl. She keeps
both me and the students riveted
one morning with an hour
of late-medieval death. But towards the end,
after class (insofar as
the phrase has meaning), she asks, half-articulately,
Why. I expect this. "History,"
I say as well as I can,
"isn't only about the past. It isn't 'about'
anything. History
is your classmates, you, and me." That month,
beneath a promising sky, she's valedictorian.
