I want to ask you: in those classrooms still
new to you, do they sit waiting, their hands
folded clean, like rows of
faceless daughters? In my dream
my nails are trimmed and I hold the pen
correctly. There are hundreds of us, all
anxious for equations, answers to questions
we do not know to ask.
I want to ask you: do you give them
what you’ve refused me these
open-handed years, slow
compulsory figures to begin with,
simple formulas to work? Or is there
among them the daughter you’ve
always wanted, the one who speaks clearly,
unafraid, who knows to grow up
on her own? Without surprise, without
expectations, how could I have
impressed you, where could I
finally stop? In my dream you
never arrive. I will be there, always in
the back, long after the room goes
empty. For you are
in my teachers’ distances, in their
forgetting my name.