Senora Williams
- Señora Williams
would have liked to rap our knuckles whenever we conveniently left our homework home, the strenuous tarea she assigned as if we had no other class but fifth period Intermediate Spanish
with a profesora who ranted ceaselessly when we didn’t roll our r’s, when we insisted on making silent h audible. Scowling, she walked the narrow rows between desks, demanding to see our
verb conjugations, our primitive answers to the textbook’s facile questions, snapping if we left one off, blank spaces so repellent to her she’d stand by our desks to punish
us, firing off vocabulary drills, mocking us when we couldn’t remember the most basic verbs: ser, to be, volver, to return, ver, to see, rompier, to break. She wanted
to break us, so she prodded, badgered, jumped up and down, her massive curly bouffant immobile, powder and rouge heavy on her puffy face,
her frown bright in ruby lipstick. She’d single people out, make them stand to read aloud, charging forward if they refused, ready for una lucha grande every time. [End Page 457]
Once she singled out Teresa one too many times, trying to make her learn, forcing her answers, asking ¿cómo se dice“dress”? ¿cómo se dice “shirt”?
¿cómo se dice “pants”? whacking her ruler on Teresa’s desk with each question, glaring as Teresa refused to reply. Señora Williams banged that ruler three more times,
harder each time until Teresa grabbed it, broke it, yelled ¿cómo se dice “bitch”?, her accent perfect in anger. Señora Williams screamed get out,
and Teresa slammed her books, mouthed fuck you as she left, the class cheering her on silently, knowing there’d be pages and pages of homework
because of this, más verbos,más preguntas, more hours hating that woman who called us all perezeso, so lazy she couldn’t teach us anything, not even if she died trying.
Selected works by Allison Joseph:
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• Summers on Screvin
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• On Sidewalks, on Streetcorners, As Girls
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• Playing Rough
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• Artist-in-Residence
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• It’s Tough to be a Girl Scout in the City
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• The Tenant
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• Señora Williams
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• Plenty
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• An Interview with Allison Joseph
Allison Joseph, who was born in London, is an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Southern Illinois University (Carbondale). Her poems have appeared in numerous periodicals, including The Kenyon Review, Parnassus, and Callaloo. She is author of What Keeps Us Here (Ampersand Press, 1992), a volume of poems. She graduated from Kenyon College and received the M.F.A. from Indiana University (Bloomington).
