for Jim

That’s the truth of it. At least when you really
need them. The other truth is that most days
there are plenty. Copying wrong answers,

sending pictures of their naked girlfriends
to all the guys on the team, and then some,
until her ultimate act of affection

is known from here to Naples, Fla.
Or swatting each other with hats because
that’s how guys say they love each other,

and besides, it really pisses you off.
Or stealing cash from the Senior Class
cash box, candy from the weak kid, or any

of the other idiocies of adolescence.
But when you really need them,
they’re quiet as ghosts in November.

In March your ex serves you up
with new papers, just before
the custody settlement’s complete,

just as you’re signing on a house,
just when your investments finally tank.
In April your mother goes for surgery

and comes out locked up like a budgie
in a vise – backed up, unconscious
for two days, then cranky and alien

for seven. Almost not your mother.
Then the clock rolls around to May
and you’re wondering, What next?

Why me? and Who made this big mess?
And you can’t stop wondering because
all of a sudden the knuckleheads have gone

silent. They look only at their own papers,
and keep their cell phones in their pants.
The till comes up even on Friday.

You stand there at the front of the room
almost crushed by the quiet,
the obedience. You want some chaos

to break out, the sweet distraction
of boyish mayhem that you can still
with a certain slant of eyebrow,

or a pen and report in triplicate
at worst. But they’re quiet, as though
they know something’s up,

something big. They’re like animals
in that way – wily and sweet at once,
and sometimes you wish you could

sock them in the arm, just a little.

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