Teaching Poem No.101, a poem by Yamil Báez

Sometimes I have to wear a smile in my heart only-    oh the torture!

…not let it creep into the corners of my mouth,

…not let invisible threads needle themselves into the outer edges of my lip

and pull up, up and up…can’t let my teeth show, oh no!

Can’t let them see me smile.

“Why so serious miss?”

I do the dead stare

and I point intensely to the board that has the A-G-E-N-D-A

the do-now,

the opener,

the starter,

the warm-up,

the get-yourself-working-as-soon-as-you-get-in-the-room agenda.

“But Miss!”

“Why you so serious Miss?”

“Miss!”

You see,

they’ve seen my smile before and know it’s there,

somewhere.

April 8, 2015
Yamil Báez