Ode to Subject Complements

You cause chaos in my classroom.

My ninth graders’ faces prove their certainty:

their grins, great pillars of our lofty temple

slowly constructed of verbs, subjects, objects.

Just after dusk has fallen on all objects of prepositions ever conceived,

we move like a weathered, rusty hinge recklessly toward you.

I caution them, hands held out, both palms cleanly poised

against an invisible wall. Examples with “is” appear easy,

and the boogers get confident,

spotting you as they would a serpent among the daffodils.

They smile as columns rise within our shrine to Lindley Murray.

But when the verb presents complexity,

“should have been,” for example, or “appears,”

they see you as a direct object rather than what you are:

a vital chain produced from the link, kids, from the link, from the link.

I move softly toward the idle broom and dustpan parked in the corner of the room,

watching as stress fractures begin to crumble their confidence.

Then I sweep and hand them each a pile of clay to construct their pillars once again.

Lisa Swank