after sedgwick (haiku about my female students)

The first day of class
I pronounced your name in French.
“Is that right?” I asked.

“No,” you replied, “it’s
like this,” offering up a
bastardization.

“All right,” I replied,
“I’ll say it wrong from now on.”
Blush. Stony silence.

***

Blonde, with heart-shaped face,
and a name given to girls
with faces like hearts.

I thought you timid,
but your nasal voice has come
to bear conviction.

I think you frighten
me. Think of all the blond girls
I thought so vapid

all those years at the
girls’ school, where I, lone Semite,
needed to believe

myself the brown-haired
iconoclast, possessor
of the verity.

You speak with aplomb,
sans arrogance. Ignorance,
also, is lacking.

I listen, awash
in old insecurities.
They think, after all!

***

Perhaps because of
your girth, I liked you from the
beginning. And now!

Your hesitation
only seems to endow your
comments with more force.

Nodding, I smile at
you despite myself. I should
remain impassive!

Your questioning tone
makes me sit up straight. You’re on
the edge of something.