One Single Impression: Waiting

To fill the waiting time
Between the dialing and the answering,
The mother of one of my most placid students
Would play a spiritual song
About my getting in the groove
Putting my hands together
Praising Jesus
And feeling the spirit.

Thus,
Jesus the Sex Therapist
Occupied my time during the wait,
After which I would answer this woman
Who would begin the conversation with,
"OK, what he do now?"
With the predictable,
"Nothing.  That's why I am calling."

But I was a liar.
He did plenty:
He lifted weights, took his vitamins,
Painted,
Tended his garden,
Ran down the hall like a lunatic, and,
I am told,
Had sex with his girlfriend
In the bathroom,
Though I'm not sure which one.
(That got him a few days out-of-school suspension,
And more time in his garden.)

I hated making those calls.
I hated the wait time and feeling embarrassed
Somehow for being white and not having a groove
And anyhow having no truck with the Spirit
That keeps the time that
Makes the groove possible.
My hands were never together.

In the end, my student painted for me
A picture that captured the heart of all we read.
"It isn't done.  It won't ever be done," he said.
"Take a picture.  Email it to me.  Show me what won't be done,"
I said.

He painted for me a picture of hands
Reaching,
Eager to be held,
And a face that could have been
Anybody's,
And he went back to his garden.

He gave me what I was waiting for,
What would never be done,
What he found in his garden
And perhaps the bathroom.

He saved me the trouble
Of a phone call
And being alone with Jesus.
Leaving me free of guilt or shame or guile,
He gave me what would never be done.

One Single Impression