Theo’s Window Teacher
by Odin Roark

As always, there she was,
her windowed classroom,
her watchful eyes of streetwise history
remaining steadfast
as another express train
sped atop the L,
rattling her undaunted focus,
as she prepared another unique day
of reflective schooling,
free to anyone willing to pay attention.

Real school.

The kind only a wet-behind-the-ears migrant like Theo
coming from the stifling self-righteous culture of the Midwest
could appreciate,
an inner city hard knocks curriculum
ancient doctrine couldn’t teach.

Theo’s tutor presented her reflections
from an unassuming window dressing,
framed by years of layered paint,
a thrift store given.

No make-up façade here,
only seasonal steam facials,
winter cold
storefront heat,
teaching the talk,
showing the walk,
visual lectures being all that mattered.

Patiently she revealed New York,
taught the walk through her
worn but faithful eyes,
rectangular lenses
forever dilated exhaustion,
as his classroom time
was a 24/7 study.

Above her glass-scape,
2nd story windows offered,
little opportunity,
muted tutelage,
no reflective wisdom,
just fear hiding inside
drawn curtain dropouts in waiting.

3rd floor rendered nothing but
glass with taped cracks
panes of cardboard,
innocent children peeking,
innocent, foreign faces of defeat.

Rooftop, typical New York,
where the pigeon-lined faithful,
poised like sentinels,
marking time,
here yesterday,
here today,
there for perpetual tomorrows.

Up on the L,
BMT’s escalating rail-sounds of motion
transported fathers,
mothers,
singles,
junkies,
suits,
all heading to anywhere
but here.

Down on the sidewalk,
few pedestrians,
most exploring dumpster overflow,
Dollar Store breakage,
bodega fast-food wrappings,
or liquor store sadness,
a neighborhood’s never-ending
day/night festivities,
broken bottles as party glitter,
romancing the neighborhood guilt.

Wandering about,
wet and dry,
some alive,
some the walking dead,
mostly bodies waiting to
become the kicked,
smashed,
stacked,
bagged,
forgotten garbage
of inner-city collateral damage.

On the street,
the downtrodden reflections paraded
beneath Theo’s 3rd story window,
his glass portal to the images of city reality
reinforcing what he desperately needed to learn.

But, survival drove him unprepared to the streets
to take, rather than earn,
and suddenly…

Theo found himself where there was no graduation,
no cap and gown celebration,
or mom and dad accolades,
no sweetheart promises forever
only another survivor needful of...

But finally…

Theo too became a drawn curtain dropout,
finding himself expelled to windowless classrooms,
the kind with no generous window teachers,
merely steel cells for feeding, clothing
and keeping society’s rejects alive.

Such became the haunt of lessons unlearned,
granting only barred vision to the outside,
where more urban casualties walked the yard,
where subway vibrations were exchanged for
steel doors sliding forever into lockdown
amid torturous echoes
just before lights out.

Eventually…

Theo’s city memories become nightmares,
as fear laden eyes, once drinking in
his mentor’s generosity and kind exposure,
now tossed and turned in solitary regret.

Oh, to return to the thrift-store window,
his entré to growing up,
to be free of regret’s eyes penitently moist and blurry,
clouding her remembrance,
perfectly framed in glorious layers of lacquer,
echoing so much left unlearned.

If only he could return
and pay better attention,
earn a 2nd chance.

If only.