What Did You Learn? Poem by William L Roberts

'Make your presentation, tell us what you've learned! '
Love stood by the blackboard and waited.
In my dream she was my high school french teacher,
The one who sometimes slipped out of class
To come back smelling of smoke and gin.
The project'd been assigned when school began:
'Keep track of all you learn
And present it at the end.'
My classmates all had posters,
Multimedia PowerPoints and 10 page papers,
The girl before me'd waxed tearful,
Her subject: 'All you need is love',
In the background she played the Loving Spoonful.
In the way of such dreams,
The assignment'd completely slipped my mind.

I stood, feeling stupid, desperate and exposed
Then I remembered a long ago evening, quite unremarkable,
We sat side by side, exhausted.
You said, 'I used to make fun of my sister
'Cause she never got her kids to bed before ten,
Look at us, it's well past eleven.'
To the class I said, 'I learned I could work and provide.'
Love smiled that thin lipped smile I'd so loathed,
'For both presentation and content, you get zeros.'

My dream changed, to a graduation after party.
We danced to 'Street Fighting Man'.
We danced to 'Sweet Jane' and 'Satisfaction'.
We danced and danced.