To Students: A Sonnet

Lingering in the hallways to the bell,

Names ne’er written atop your assignment. Then to read simple words thou cans’t not spell,

Sentences that runneth on, I am spent!

Classes fill’d with distracted chatter.

Trash heaps left upon mine floors and table. When a colleague asks, “What is the matter?”

I shake mine head, tis all I am able.

Tasks ignored and thy duties abandoned.

Grades that earn the alphabet’s second vowel. Late work? You hath not a leg to stand on!

Alas, thine interims shall make you howl!

Mine wish is that thou see’st graduation,

And these foul habits meet their cessation.

Angela L. Single-Adelman