The Impossible to Grade

As we near the end of our term together,

I am already planning my escape.

First, I will delete the class roster from my brain

Slowly forgetting your names.

I plan to forget your comma splices and absences next.

Your stories of friendships and first loves are soon to follow.

The way you saw a poem with understanding and appreciation next

Eventually leaving only the impossible to forget:

The image of you lying on the couch drunk and lost and broken

With Pink Floyd playing in the background stays.

Your loveless childhood spent with abusive parents

and needy siblings remain with me. Your courage and survival skills

on nights without heat or food or any control are mine forever.

Your tribute to parents and friends who did not abandon you

When you stole and lied and ruined your life with cocaine and heroine stays.

I am talking to you, pretty girl, with the scars from cutting.

And your neighbor, the boy with the club foot and heart-breaking past

filled with relentless bullies and an evil mother

who refuses to let you grow up and away from her.

Your determination to walk away from her in your wheelchair is mine now.

And you, refugee from an African country that I already have forgotten

and you, man from the Vietnam War with scars so deep

the class almost stops breathing just to hear each and every word you have to share.

Your stories of poverty and lives without hope

Your stories of mistakes and deep regret

Your stories of life are mine now, too.

How could I ever grade that?