::12:02:07::

::: I was a teacher in Chicago :::

Today in Chicago I saw
a multitude of boats swarming
for their daily trip
with the focal point of tourism
built daily
Millennium Park
so I will always remember Chicago.

I will remember Chicago
where my babies were born
and they both bake easily in the sun
on a transit summer day
and people still stop
to ask me
if they are mine.

Millennium Park sparkles
along the water and shining tourists
travel long miles to visit
the Art Museum
to see a large picture of an eye
watching over the children
of Chicago while they play.

And if you become a teacher in Chicago
you might become a part
of a political play
where the administrators administrate
to eliminate your position.
And then meet you later
at a circular job fair
where teachers replace one another
to fight for a position.

And in this new position you might see
children home watching TV alone
who later loose their friends to the
gangs that write the papers of the streets
and no teacher can re-write that, you know.

And later you might see your favorite students
grow to fight and kill one another
an absence in the class.
At the funeral all those
teachers are bragging to handle all the minorities
when it was society who called them that
in the first place.

And tomorrow I will ask my child
to cut out
the poverty line, the welfare line, the unemployment line
in bright construction paper
So I can bring back my favorite student
And find a new job to pay our bills.
And I will throw those papers away
And my family will travel
to a place where there is only sand and bright lights
no water and the South and North fade
with the color line
and no one asks me if my children are mine.

I was a teacher on the South Side of Chicago.
And I will leave here
because my anger has gotten the best of me.
And it will not miss me anyway.

Written by: ~ Niki