To Love a Teacher - April 16, 2025 (For Dorothea Bisbas, deceased March 20, 2025)

she treated every poem

like a patient

her words were like a scalpel

that opened and cut out growths

detrimental to its well-being

then closed it back up with good

stitching and the bedside

delivery of a positive prognosis

rarely would she say

someone’s verses

weren’t going to make it

she rescued my poetry

more times than I can remember

over and over

and at some point

I knew she was more

than her profession

so I laid open my heart