Strike Day #18

Cold are the distant insults

Empty are the classrooms 

Negative was my bank account 

Absent are the humans in leadership 

Hire an attorney 

Put a mediator in the middle of two zooms

Call it a negotiation 

Strike Day #18

Distracted is my thinking without obsessively checking the Watsapp

Fellow is the faculty I didn’t know I had

Students we miss

Some we hug on the streets

Stiff is the body from stomping concrete 

Warm is the blood pumping in solidarity 

Grievance is not the word for what feels like betrayal

Be it 4 or 18 or 20 years

Teaching thousands of growing generations 

Job security a non existence dinosaur 

Tenure a ghostly illusion 

Castle crumbles

Ivory tower turns see through

Glass revealing stacks of misused language 

I sit by the fire wondering if there’s a corner in the world untouched by greed

If justice is real 

If content is hallow 

Maybe that’s why I take photos

“Look!”

“Look at her face.  Their gesture.  His eyes.”  

Skin wrinkles with story

Cameras don’t lie 

Once upon a time

We fought for a decent contract as part time faculty 

According to the eyes, we won