My Teacher Again, and: Isolette

Abstract

My Teacher Again, and: Isolette Natalie Shapero (bio) My Teacher Again I happened to meet, in a dream, my teacher again—at leastthat’s how I put it to friends, pretending, as I often do,that the scene was not one of my conscious manufacture.Really I’d just imagined it while entirely awake, while doingsomething impossible for someone in the middle of sleeping,snacking on carrots or needling a stuck beadout from the floorboard crack. What my teacher wantedso much to convey was that taking in a dog is for ego—that people get off on being greeted after errandsas though they’ve returned from the sea. But what I loveabout my dog is not her desperation for me, but how she does notfeel shame at her desperation, the way I feel shameat my desperation for you, Ricky, each time you appearin the sliver of kitchen at six in the morning, river of curlsuntidy from sleeping. I’ve been up all night. [End Page 20] Isolette So they can put a man on the moon, but they won’tmake a way for a living adult to go back and electto have never existed. To save from being rapedthe person who had the person who had the personwho had the person who had me, would I give upmy life? Yeah, I would. I mean who needs it:the hospital by the highway, the isolette, flat sheet— I would give it all up ever and backward to save you,even though, let’s face it, what did you do for me? For my wooly moment, which to youis the future? Did you force a new world in whichI would be protected? That’s a no. But I’m notpetty. I am in fact an enemy of the fixation with thingsbeing square, the check split down to the penny.It’s my pleasure. It’s my pleasure. It’s my treat. [End Page 21] Natalie Shapero natalie shapero is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection Popular Longing. Copyright © 2023 Natalie Shapero ...