Fourth Thursday

Normally, I can count on my students
to be late
and to come wearing their smiles
under their caps.
These are the kids rejected by St. Louis,
who learn to turn their eyes
from pavement to parchment,
to write their stories in sound waves
and send them to their handcuffs.
All they want is a chance
to write at top volume,
screaming from the bottom
of their lead-tipped pencils.

Today,
their smiles were left at home,
consoling their mothers
who mourn the King of Pop.
We all sit there, silent,
me a teacher, with no prompt
and wandering thoughts
of canceling class.

One of them asks:
"Gerald, what did you think of MJ?"
I smile:
"He was the best there ever was."
Another looks at me:
"Wasn't he born in Gary?"
I cock my eyebrow:
"Yea, why do you ask?"
His eyes slide from me to his desk:
"You wouldn't know by looking at him."
I chuckle:
"I guess you're right. Can't judge a book
by its cover."

A girl named Candice,
usually quite with fingers
that pick locks and pat
her little sister on the back
before school daily,
raises her hand for the first time
this summer.

"Isn't Gary mostly Black?"
I smile:
"Yea, it's pretty Black."
Her voice softens:
"Wasn't he Black?"
I can't resist:
"It was contested.
But he's definitely Black."
She turns towards the window,
staring at the setting sun,
dying us all amber:
"I only knew Michael Jackson
as that guy that was supposed
to touch children. The guy
with the messed up hair
who couldn't decide what sex
he was or what race
he would be that day,
but when I see my mother
crying for him,
I wonder what it must have been like
to see Thriller when it first came out."

I take a deep breath,
her words heavy in my lungs:
"When you're the best,
they will beat you down."
Their eyes widen.
I continue:
"This is what it looks like.
When you're down,
this world will try
to keep you down.
It's fingers will grip your ankles,
and every time you take a step
up, it will pull you back.
Everyday,
we fight to escape gravity
and float with stars,
to never look back at the Earth
that never smiled back."

Their completely silent.
I'm completely silent.

Candace raises her hand,
damp with sweat.
"What made him different, then?"

I walk to her desk,
her eyes avoid mine:

"He made it,
but instead of trying to abandon
this world,
he tried to heal it,
so that others
from Gary,
to Detroit,
to Moscow,
to London
and to this very classroom
can make that same journey."

The sun set fully,
but I can still see amber
in their irises.

"How do we make that journey?"

I laugh:
"That's a good question.
How do you think?"
Another student begins to raise his hand.
My hand beats his:
"Don't tell me, tell your notebooks."

40 minutes pass,
their hands searching their
pages for answers,
the stars becoming visible.
and a video playing on the projector
of Michael,
dancing with his white sparkling glove.
I watch the video
but I can hear them mumbling to each other
the culmination of their poems:

"My path was paved by my family,
and I'll walk it with you on my headphones..."
"I'm tired of looking at the man in the mirror,
but I have a lot to work on..."
"My friends play my instrumentals..."
"Our paths aren't the same,
none of ours are,
but you said that 'we are not alone...'"
"Thank you for showing me that I can live
off the wall..."

and in that moment,
on the screen,
Micheal's gloved hand
stopped before his face,
twinkling
like the jewels of his crown.