Dear English Teacher (with a nod to Maria A.)

I remember sitting in your classroom
wondering how you did it:
how did you become an authority on commas and colons?

How did you spend your nights?

I imagined you sitting alone behind a tray table
in your living room,
TV dinner and essays stacked neatly next to one another,
red pen falling in line next to the fork and knife.

I almost felt awful the next day when I asked
if you had graded my paper.

I apologize for my self-importance.
I wonder if you ever got to eat a meal in peace –
without the incessant hum of run-on sentences,
the frantic motion of fragments.