Challenging Poetry

the life of a graduate student instructor

our lives defined:
cubicle walls, four feet high
three drawers, locked
two keys, slightly bent
one light, florescent and flickering
no door.

I’m downstairs, I tell the students—
on the wall next to the window
in the middle of the row.
the window doesn’t open.
it is clouded,
but if it were clear, it would show
the basement walkway,
and the ground, above our heads.

some days
I never see the sun.

there are four rows of us
in clean, straight lines,
on rolly chairs so I wander
to my neighbor, three feet
down the hall between cubicles—
to ask for help or confirmation
on some question of grading.

we are pale
in the glow of florescent lighting
and computer screens.
four rows of us—
we work, hoping to graduate,
so someday, we will
merit an office door.

I am graduating soon, and I'm not currently working, but I know that room. I've spent seven semesters in it. And the best bit is that a lot of us (the ones who end up enjoying teaching) are just learning so we can graduate and do this thankless thing full time. And adjunct professors don't even get a seat in the cubes--not at my university, at any rate. So, we graduate, and we're out of office space. Instead, (if we get into the teaching pool) we end up directing students to meet us in the faculty lounge.