While Everything Falls Apart, Imagine How You’ll Explain to Your Son Why You Had to Leave Graduate School

when finances don’t make sense
            to a toddler and you’re no good at math
can’t count how much you’ll have to pay
            on the invisible tuition waiver
when you’re son’s happy to live
            in a cardboard box until its roof
caves in and the rain and snow
            soak his bed too cold to bear
even for the small boy who swims
            in puddles all winter and thrusts
his hands elbows deep into iced-over fountains
            when you’ve been able to give him
so much of you these last few years
            you’ve lost count and the time
not with him you’ve spent
            with countless words
you hope and doubt
            will shape his future
when those who will
            refuse to hear or read refuse
to listen to what the hundred
            thousand like you spend
their lives on
            words as life
and life as words and words
            still rendering you
powerless
            because no matter
how you slice it—the golden delicious
            your son ate this morning
with its tender seeds and apple heart
            just small enough to fit
his growing mouth
            the teeth and tongue expand
devouring new words by the hour—
            you would never let your son
go hungry

IU Officials: Tax Reform Bill Could Reduce Grad Student Enrollment [Indiana Public Media]
Graduate Students Worry Taxes Will Skyrocket Under House Tax Bill [Lansing State Journal]
The GOP Tax Bill Got a Triple Whammy of Brutal Reviews [Business Insider]

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach emigrated from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania where her research focuses on contemporary American poetry about the Holocaust. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf and TENT Conferences as well as the Auschwitz Jewish Center. Julia is the author of The Bear Who Ate the Stars (Split Lip Press, 2014) and her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, and Sixth Finch, among others. Julia is Editor of Construction Magazine and when not busy chasing her toddler around the playgrounds of Philadelphia, she also writes a blog about motherhood.

Photo by Brandi Redd.