Robert M. Simmons  

from Tracings (Poems 1964-1992)    

              Doris

Now Doris sits on a bench

among well manicured trees

placidly reading a book,

a model of decorum,

the picture of perfection,

looking as if she belongs

in the society section

of the Sunday news.

This was not always her direction.

She once roamed the groves of academe,

a wild hog in heat,

smashing marriages like twigs

beneath her careless feet.

The names of those who made their stands

included dons and deans,

coaches and custodians.

Stories of  these sordid scenes,

glazed with proper euphemisms,

passed like plates of pastry

at afternoon teas,

but Doris continued disrupting lives

despite the whisperings

of faculty wives

and their daughters.

This could not proceed

ad infinitum.

Spent after years of defiance

she finally married

a professor of management science,

after his divorce,

of course.

Now Doris sits on a bench

among well manicured trees,

a faculty wife if you please,

back straight, hair perfected,

reading something carefully selected

from a recommended list,

vulnerable to a summer breeze

or an early autumn mist.

                            © 2003 by Robert M. Simmons

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Subjects: poems about college life, college faculty, character studies, satire, poetry, poems

Doris