Substitute Teacher Falls Down the Stairs

 From The Tots’ Apocalypse

SUBSTITUTE TEACHER FALLS DOWN THE STAIRS

by Brett Rutherford

Four trains she took
from Greenwich Village
through the burned-out slums
to a South Bronx public school.

She needed the work.
She really didn’t mind
for once she was in that classroom
to talk about writers and poems,
there was nearly always one pair
of bright eyes, at tears’ edge
to hear someone read to them
and tell them they had a voice
inside them, waiting to come out.

She really didn’t mind,
despite the leg brace
from childhood polio
that made each step forward
a danger-dance
with the last step ever.

Once, in mid-day,
when she had to the stair-up
star-down to the bathroom,
a strong hand pushed her,
and clatter-clack down
she tumbled, ten, twenty steps
before she caught herself.

Faces above leered down,
and laughter chittered.
She left, on account of
“Someone pushed me.”
Nothing was done,
on account of
“Cripples are always falling down.” 

No writers or poetry that day,
that week, or maybe ever.
The boys had found
a boiler-room hideout
where they smoked joints,
eyed packets
of suspicious powders
they were asked to sell,
and made up tales
of what they would do to girls
once someone let them.
In possession of fists
they needed nothing
from a book’s white pages.

No one would clatter-clack them
down any stairwell, ever.