At the end of the year the angry e-mails

arrive like clockwork, like the dreaded

Christmas letter about someone else’s life

written in the voice of a small child.

Except this voice, in this e-mail,

doesn’t even pretend

that the year was anything other

than what it was.  He’s a military man and he knows

what he wants and is ready

to go to battle, demanding a meeting, berating

the system, the school which failed

his son.  You were supposed to make him better

prepared for whatever else he might confront, a life

beyond this one screaming at you.

Any small thing you said or didn’t say will come back

to haunt you: your own messy words

scrawled across his blank life

thrown back in your face.  You can see this man, the boy’s

graded essays balled in his fists.  This father’s missive

is filled with declarations, anger punctuated

with exclamation points, bold-

faced and screaming from your computer screen.

My son entered this class with a love

of literature and poetry! he exclaims.  All you can see

is the blank-faced young man sitting in your classroom, eyes

like a dumb deer who doesn’t know

what is about to hit him.