Jared Johnson, ISS

The secretary has sent an email asking

for assignments for Jared Johnson, who is serving

two days of in-school suspension for crimes

that I can only guess at,

confidentiality being what it is.

I am to put down on paper all

that will transpire in two fifty minute periods

of class time, our shamefully short study of Paradise Lost,

“The Fall of Satan,” to be specific --

the sneaky little details to be teased out of

Milton’s mad iambic, the dark fire and despairing anger

of petulant Satan cursing God for his own

condemnation, all that I want Jared

to learn. And I wonder

if Jared Johnson already knows quite a bit

about despairing anger as he sits alone

in the ISS room, asking the secretaries

for permission to use the bathroom,

to go to lunch, for more to do.

Will Jared repent of his sins or like Satan

plot new ways of inflicting himself on the world?

I will have him read the section of the poem

we will discuss in class, take notes on it,

write at least five questions that matter,

but what Jared sees will not

be our collected vision in room 306. Maybe

it will be better. Maybe he will see the irony

of being in a small hell and reading about an angel of light

who curses not his own rebellion

but the just God who chains him in a darkness visible.

Jared, is it better to rule in ISS than to serve in room 306?

The gifts of the subconscious

You dreamed about her for two nights before recalling

who she was, your current student and dream-world girlfriend,

grown up and teaching junior high school, with a roommate

who kept things from going too far, along with your subconscious.

You and she made out, to put it bluntly, kissing and rubbing,

nearly chaste if not for the fact that you were already married in the dream, too.

They lived in a ratty little apartment and kept house badly,

so you dreamed of cleaning out, to their glee, the disgusting toaster

and of cleansering out the sink, which was too greasy

for any civilized adult. Your subconscious

also kept you ashamed, for though the dream’s streets were unfamiliar,

the car you drove nothing like the one you’d drive in real life,

you still had the sense to be furtive and fearful, pulling a cap

down over your eyes and hoping no one recognized you,

that your own children wouldn’t be in that unknown part

of the unnamed town.

When you realized who she was,

you were shocked – except for your subconscious, of course,

which never is. Your girlfriend in that dream looked forward

to your marrying, even though her being half your age

would be an improvement. She found you funny, exciting,

generous, maybe even good looking, though dreams

can only go so far.

Who do you think you are,

having dreams like this? Your dreams are so much more

mundane as a rule, about replaying high school sports

or telling off the supervisor badly in need of it. Rarer

are these of the subconscious wish-fulfilling variety, which perhaps

makes them the greater and more unsettling gift.