By Jane Barnes
Years ago, at the City College of New York, I had a brilliant student, from Colombia and abject poverty. I had high hopes for him. He thought he couldn’t afford to write. I thought he couldn’t afford not to. About 25 years later, his wife Roberta Paoletti and I are still hoping. You can’t do it for them. People write when they need to. No urging from me will change that. As a teacher, lesson learned.
My brilliant City student
Wrote of sitting on his roof
To escape that mud floor
The fighting. In NYC he
Marries artist Paoletti.
20 years later reunited
No novel but two engineering
Degrees later. He is still
Up on the roof, hiding.
A New York City poet, Jane Barnes, 80, has published stories and poems in over 75 literary magazines.