she tells me about a boy who comes to school
filthy — clothes, skin, hair — I mean filthy, she says
I wonder, does he never wash? has he no shower?
no parents? no home? what brings him to school
every day? he’s one of six students in her
“intervention” group, students who are behind
who do not learn, who cannot, she says, learn
the parts of speech, though all of them can speak
they know how to assemble verb, noun, adjective
so in fact they know parts of speech as a dog
knows a hydrant, a cat, its owner, without
giving names to any of them — a dirty silent
boy, who agrees to sit at the group table the day
another boy, the one who misbehaves, is absent
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