I'm tired and the weather is lousy and I've been up to my eyeballs in committee work all week but I still feel like writing a poem. Problem is, nothing rhymes with midterms. Interns? Infirm? Lid perms? I'm just not feeling it.
In fact I haven't been feeling particularly poetic all semester. I'm well aware that the verse I write barely qualifies as poetry, but playing with words in a rhymey way feeds a particular part of my psyche. As a child I somehow came into possession of a decrepit rhyming dictionary with the front cover missing, and I used to pore over that bedraggled volume by the hour trying to put together words to make them sing. My first publication, in fact, was a set of rhyming quatrains called "Love," published in Wee Wisdom magazine when I was in fourth grade. Everyone has to start somewhere!
Then in my turgid teen years I tried to give up rhyme and write Serious Poetry, but alas, lugubrious best describes my swerve toward free verse. Nobody encouraged my efforts, and I missed the way that comfy old rhyming dictionary fit into my hands. Did it finally fall to pieces or did someone donate it to the Goodwill? If I had it in my hands right now, would I find a rhyme for midterms?
Well I've got some time to kill while my students write their midterm exams so nothing's going to stop me from trying.
When I handed my students their midterms,
they all squirmed in their seats (like a squid squirms).
Students wriggled and writhed
like fresh bait--It's alive!--
or a bucket in which you have hid worms.
But they soon settled in, fingers flying
over keyboards, their minds clearly trying
to respond to the prompt
with aplomb. They all chomped
up the question and wrote without crying.
Now I'm the one crying and squirmin'
(like a squid) over piles of midterms in
my inbox for grading,
so there's no more evading
the task: it's my turn for midterming!
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