Thursday, September 20, 2012

The Second Day of Class by Donal Mahoney



This sylph came forward
from the second row
the second day of class
and asked if
I would edit her poem
so it would read
the way it should.

I told her straightaway
that even though
this was writing class
and I was the instructor,
I couldn’t edit her poem
and still have the poem be hers.

Editing her poem, I said,
would be a little like rape,
just painful in a different way
whether she understood that
yet or not. 

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