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?