The Skirt (an original poem)

I hope you become a teacher who fights for a future fit for all children – a place of peace and justice. (Inscription from Bill Ayers in my copy of To Become a Teacher, 1998)

The child was born in the year of Title IX.

The mother was concerned with her own new pants,

so the father liberally decorated the child’s room

in yellow and green.

The young child went to school

in tube socks, athletic shorts and a Star Wars t-shirt.

The child received high marks for creativity

            playing Father during games of house.

Yet, school confused the child

with boy lines and girl lines and no coloring outside the lines.

So out of school the child taught school in a new way

            in the closet

with stuffed animal students and shoe box desks

But the child grew up

Society clamored with its claws

“To teach, you must wear a skirt” SHE was told

SHE returned to the closet

            to the shoebox desks

                        and stuffed animal students

                                    and made yelling sounds

“I am I, not SHE;

See how I will teach.”