Glass: A Journal of Poetry Volume Two Issue One       

Iain Macdonald

Absent

For weeks afterwards,
my pen would trip on
her presence in the roll book,
my head half-rise, involuntarily
towards that empty desk.
 
Others--
dropped, transferred, expelled--
were summarily excised
with one bold stroke;
yet she remained
a momentary reminder
each weekday morning.
 
Until today,
tallying grades at semester's end,
I suddenly, impulsively
gouged a horizontal line
through her name,
a mark harsh and definitive
as burnt-black tire tracks
cutting ruthlessly
across a rain-slicked highway.