Lindsay Holeman’s most recent poem to appear here was “One Heart” (April 2018). 

Courage
By Lindsay Holeman

They came from all over.
South America. Mexico.
China. Sri Lanka. Honduras.
When the president speaks about them on tv,
he said he loves them and wants
Congress to help them.
He doesn’t know the first thing about love.
And he doesn’t know them.
I know them, or, at least, I did.
Jose. Veronica. Lisestrella. Adrian.
Hector. Eduardo. Yhendi Joselyn.
Their names ran through my head like
the notes of a sad, sweet song.
I see their little faces in my mind’s eye.
Some were in Kindergarten.
Some were in First grade.
I sat beside them. I taught them.
And, in turn, they taught me.
Their personalities were all so different,
but one thing mostly stayed consistent.
They usually always called me Miss.
It was hard for them to remember and
pronounce the teachers’ last names. It
was much easier to just us all Miss.
On my last day teaching a children’s yoga class,
I had one student call me Miss. Yoga.
He didn’t know, even after all that time, my name.
Sometimes they met their academic goals, and
sometimes they did not.
But we learned together.
We laughed together.
It’s been years since I’ve seen these children,
years since we’ve spoken.
I think about them, and I worry about them.
All I can do now is pray that I’ve taught them courage.
They’ll need that in the coming months
Far more than grammar.