Hope Was a Thing with Papers

The government called her dreamer.
I called her Sheana:
hard-working, top of her class,
wanting proof.

She called herself a burden,
a word her parents never used.
They spoke no English,
but I could read their bodies,
as veteran teachers often do:
a hand at her back—you did it;
a handkerchief raised when it’s not cold season—
you are everything.

When they asked, through Sheana,
for help getting her into college,
I thought: this will be easy.

But no documentation, no loans
equaled no entry.
Instead, she worked two jobs,
mopped floors until her reflection
vanished in wax,
took night classes at a school
that lost its name before her degree.

She learned to read reality
faster than I could offer optimism.
She packed away talk of children,
swaddled it in silence.
Hope was a thing with papers.
No family, no progenies:
her soil was salted before spring.

Her final post: I don’t belong here.
I called and called.
The line clicked—
and kept clicking,
as if someone
was erasing her
one digit at a time.





Patrick G. Roland is a writer and educator living with cystic fibrosis. He explores life’s experiences through poetry and storytelling, seeking to inspire others in the classroom and through writing. His work appears or is forthcoming in Hobart, scaffold, 3Elements, Maudlin House, Trampoline, and others.