Matthew Siegel

Normally I would snap my fingers 
behind your ear but it's summer 
and I understand why you are sick 
of poems.  Normally, I would wake you
with my teacher voice and ask 
is there a problem, Bryan?
But instead I watch you, head down 
on the cool desk, your back rising, 
falling with each breath, as if 
you were my son on vacation, 
tired of temples.  The classroom is dark 
and warm like the inside of a flower.  
The projector hums like your mother.  
Love the questions themselves, I said 
to you earlier, and you looked up at me 
in that way children look up at adults.  
I want to tell you I too know 
what it means to eat lunch alone 
at a big table watching girls laugh, 
sip cold blue slush through thick straws, 
what it means to watch soup steam 
rise, to breathe it in, look for figures
in the noodles, how it feels to force-feed 
the last few golden mango chunks at dessert.  
Bryan, I am not going to tell you 
how lovely you are asleep on your desk,
how one day, who knows, maybe you
might turn into a man who looks at a boy
sleeping in his classroom
and instead of chastising him 
wants to touch his hair.














This poem first appeared in Indiana Review