Drills

     It was one of those summer immersion courses,
where students must speak the language they’re learning
     in brittle, artificial dialogues,
   injecting textbook empathy into the tone:
“Vous etes souffrant?” “Non, ce n’est pas grave.
C’est le foie, comme toujours.”
     A summer so loud with roses
climbing on their little cleats
and sculpting blossoms as they climbed
     I couldn’t hear myself speak.

Until the teacher plucked me from the chorus
with a question out of sync with all our drills:
     ”Does suffering help one understand
the suffering of others? What do you think, Alice?”
I wanted to describe an essay I’d received—
         I also was a teacher—
from a former Marine
who wrote of the wounds, humiliation,
     he’d endured in war
     and how he’d held up well
until a medic touched him gently.
I wanted to build complex sentences,
  quivering with clauses that reveal
        the meaning sheath by sheath
     and lead to, or perhaps enact, the fact
that understanding is itself unbearable.
    Sentences beyond the depth
of my thin French. So I just said yes.