Excerpt From "Poem For Trey" By Joaquin Zihuatanejo Poem by Sharron Meaker

I am a high school English teacher. And for the last seven years on the 20th of every month, the state of Texas and its infinite benevolence has seen fit to give me a paycheck. A paycheck that is a disgrace to other paychecks. Other paychecks give my paycheck an atomic wedgie and shove my paycheck into a locker. But if you ask me, my personal wealth much like the faith of a child is immeasurable. So I ask you not to measure me by what I take home at the end of every month, but rather what I go home with every day. Because I go home every day with the realization that some of these inner city street kids that most people see as no good hood rats, well some of them grow up to be doctors, and teachers, and dreamers and song singers. And I am a small part of that, because in my classroom I make my students press the pencil down hard when they write so as to leave an impression on things they were not intending to impress. In my classroom, I make my students ask the biggest question of all - why? And more importantly I make them answer it. Like why is it when we live in a world that when people think of young people and writing, they think of text messages and not poems. Oh, even better, why don't young people text message poems to each other? Maybe it's because somewhere along the way someone forgot to teach them that there is salvation in words, so I make my students read. I make my students read two plays, five novels, twelve short stories, and 142 poems every single year... So don't measure me by my tax bracket, because I make poets dammit! And yes on the 20th of every month I do get a pathetic excuse for a paycheck, but I get so much more than that because in return for all that I give, I get to witness little miracles every day.