The Day After Poem by Will Thomas

I am a 59-year-old
male teacher
of teen-aged girls,
or young women,
as the most constipated
of our instructors
like to say.

I teach them literature
and American History.
On the whole,
I am far more liberal
than the school,
most of the parents,
and most of the young women
(how in the hell did that happen?) .

I talk about Margaret Sanger,
and many of them
see her as the anti-Christ.
I do everything
but crucify Phyliss Schlafly;
they worship her
as Joan of Arc
of the latter twentieth century.

I try to convince them
that 'feminism'
is not an obscenity,
that all feminists
are not bra-burning,
child-deserting,
husband-neglecting
lesbians, or other manner
of troglodyte.

I attempt
to make them understand
that without Betty Friedan
-God, she's ugly, Mr. Thomas-
they wouldn't be sitting
in my classroom
debating issues,
wondering what college
they might attend,
or trying to choose
between careers in medicine,
the law,
engineering,
or business school.

Now,
by year's end,
many of them have gained
some understanding
(partially, extremely partially) ,
and opine that, yes,
they might like a career,
you know, before and after
they have raised
their right-wing spawns
for pro-choice crusades,
and battles against
such lethal weapons
as condoms and birth control pills
(which, God love 'em
many see as actual tools
of abortion) .

Well, anyway,
what I tell those
who see child rearing
as an 18-year investment is this:
It will be 18 years-
and the next day;
it will be every day
that the faces of your children
flash across your soul
and drive even
the most atheistic of you
to your knees.

It will be fears
about their marriages,
about the health
and survival of their children.
It will be the moments
when she tells you
that-not to worry-
there is a lump,
or that he might
-might-
be seeing someone else,
or that your grandson's temperature
is 103 degrees.

It will be 18 years
and the day
that one calls home
weeping from a broken heart
that you are powerless
to bandage
much less to lay hand on
and heal.
It will be the day you pass
what looks like one of their cars,
tangled and tortured
at the side of the road.

Eighteen years,
and the two a.m. call
that turns out to be a wrong number,
but leaves you utterly sleepless,
quaking,
sick and filmy with sweat,
picturing the night
when it will be the right connection.

Apocalypse Then.

It will, my girls,
be 18 years,
and the day that this happens,
or that happens.

It will be 18 years,
and every single day
that they are on this earth,
breathing and being.

It will be 18 years,
and all the next days,
until the day
you die.

Then,
and only then,
will you lay the burden down.