the teacher

there's a story of a woman
a teacher i was told
she lived down south in Georgia
teaching science to the high school crowd
why would you teach teenagers when you are deformed?
they do the same impressions of her
as they contour their face
the right side of their mouths lifts up,
their noses scrunch and their eyes squint,
they slur their speech and spray saliva as they go
it's hard to have the classroom under control when they say she's a freak
she's grotesque i was told
one year she transferred schools and never taught again
they found her body with a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the face
the moral of the story: be nice to your teachers, no one else is.