Poetry, Part Sixty

The Academy needed me back, briefly. In one of the more bizarre twists in the entire situation, after I had resigned and left the service, a few months later I was called and asked to come and testify in a one-on-one, closed-door interview regarding a student who had flunked an English class of mine the previous year. He attended my summer make-up class but, I believe, he did not show up after the first couple of classes and failed yet again. (Or perhaps he had barely passed that summer course but flunked the next English class he took from a different instructor the following year and was academically discharged from the Academy for numerous failures. I don't remember which occurred, all these years later.)

His dad was a prominent African-American Air Force officer and had wanted his son to attend USAFA. It was my opinion back then that his son didn't want to be in the service, regardless of his father's wishes, and never put much effort into his studies or writing papers or anything else academic even though he was an intelligent kid with a lot of potential. Somehow, his father found out about my discharge for being gay and was attempting to use that as a justification to get his son yet another chance to remain at the Academy. The authorities needed me to testify that I had not been prejudiced against this particular student and had given him the failing grade he had earned.

The fact that I had had several other African-American and black students--one young woman was from Jamaica and was amazed to learn that I owned many Bob Marley albums and loved his music--and that all of them had gotten A's or B's in my classes did not seem to enter into this situation. Vivette, in particular, was such a wonderful student and very supportive of me. She and her boyfriend stayed at my house for spring break when they could not afford to go home that year; and she also knew Cadet Bostic, who was in her cadet squadron. In fact, she was one of several students who testified that Bostic had told her the same stories that he told me, the same stories he had denied ever telling anyone when my attorneys interviewed him.

The following poem may have been about that particular return. Or it could have been about some other return. (I also returned three years later when my former students graduated in 1983.)

Easter Service

Some situations never want you back,
so you're unexpected.

When I have returned on occasion,
I am no advice and no spirit.

People have to sound
injustice for centuries
before others hear it.

Unnoticed,
I willed the clouds roll aside
my cave entrance
(a man has to make his own
resurrection these days).

But silver still buys betrayal,
so I want no troubling recognition as
I return as no flame, only flesh.

That's sufficient disguise in our time
of no demonstration.

Presence is enough of a rebel
as secrets remain so
as written.

---