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.
