I think of Plato in a schoolroom dusk,
Light-stunned across the distances of sun.
Notes that I took and studied at my desk
Resolved him, pigeonholed him, and were done.
The shining Image of the ding-an-sich
Still speaks the burgher. Patently
The body of the body politic
Prefers its legend to its history.
Teacher, who loved George Washington and Hoover,
Thought of him privately as Shelley’s father:
A sort of third-vice-resident-prime-mover
Wearing a beard and the Order of the Garter.
Teacher was sure my undershirt was red
Because I coughed when she cried Pax et lux.
She had not seen us in Amanda’s bed
Asserting all was genitive and flux.
And though I wander on the tides like fish,
My hand is on the thousandths of an inch
Between the sear and firing pin, pin and wish.
And who will die before or after lunch?
And buried in the usuries of a wreath
Not hear the burgher’s oratory praise
Teacher and God. Whereby they waste a death
Who might have bought a world for half the price.
Scholar in oil and steel and numbered parts
I have poor teacher’s error at my thumb,
And would request good voters of all sorts
To lay less emphasis on Kingdom Come.
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