Schoolmarm Lane Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Underneath The Pledges of Allegiance,
Hand over heart,
And then sitting back down to fail algebra,
To watch the clock:
To hear the alligators in the canal just
Next to us—horrible, reptilian things,
Yet freer than us:
We are like Peter Pan in chains
And the sun makes love to the sky that
We would like to see:
Now, all grown up I work on Schoolmarm Lane—
They complain about me, that I cannot
Tell the truth,
That I never get things done—
But in my mind, I sleep underneath the lavender
School bus all day:
Children come into my classroom,
I try to reclaim what they have lost,
But my reptilian mind swims away
As free as the crocodiles in the nocturnal sea.