A sad day here in Harmony: a longtime staff member at the school died suddenly yesterday, and all the children, preschool through college, are distressed and bewildered. This a such a small town. Sometimes it feels as if every single person is indispensable, that every single person leaves a hole.

Substitute Teacher

Dawn Potter

--after Elizabeth Bowen

You look at places

you are leaving,

thinking: What

did I hope to find?—

a ten-year-old

fat girl alight

in the fluorescent

shimmer of Monday

fear, blank field

beyond a window

gray as a mitten,

a stack of syllables

against your tongue,

savage and unkempt—

here, in the emptiest

room on this round

earth: a slew of eyes,

blackbird bright,

and your thin

hands, mouthing air—

a single note,

ticking, ticking . . .

a vast alarm

of silence.

(from How the Crimes Happened [CavanKerry Press, 2010]).