The Mark
By Niall Twohig
A student asks, through tears,
Will I be marked down for missing class?
Thing is, she’s living the course,
present in her pain,
present in her joy,
finding the sacredness of her word
the sanctity of her voice.
And “missed” classes,
in her case,
is euphemistic:
missed time
is time spent
tending wounds.
I tell her:
there’s the tablet of the law
and the spirit of the law,
the tablet of the course
and the spirit of the course.
She’s in the spirit.
How can I mark her down
as she hits the mark?