Lessons in Virtue

~for Liana

Today you learned courage

as you slid down the 10^th grade

hall to geometry class and back

to the principal’s office to retrieve

your forgotten shoes, the cold

plastic floor burning a hole

through patterned socks.

Today you learned restraint,

to show the sullen, pale face

of teenage nonchalance, to bury

shame behind a care-less shrug

as the bite of that told-you-a-million-

times scolding bore into you.

You have yet to learn about prudence

or planning ahead or rows of shoes

on racks by the front door or why

adults make you feel wrong

when they are right.

But this will teach you

the emptiness of justice,

the absence of your mother’s

charity, faith, and love.

~Pamela L. Taylor © 2013