Mrs. Elena

Do you hear the subtlety of her breath?
The terse, spondee sentences? 
Declarative, and so direct?
Do you hear how she makes
Me like Thomas Chatterton
And with lies, demolishes an entire career?
The Special Education Teacher
Meets the Poet, the Essayist and Novelist
And she in one utterance undoes it all?

Yet. I still write.

For if I wrote by her rules,
I'd have little joy.