Maybe they feared the sounds
would crackle in the complacent
air, would charge the oxygen
in the classroom, singeing the edges
of history books. Or maybe her law-
lessness angered them, the anarchy
of her hands. Perhaps her inability
to read upset their measures of
strength and competence. Or
it might be that her feminine
determination, her constant
return, her risks, her breath,
always under her own control,
was more than they thought
we students should imagine.
I mean, how could it be that this
woman of seizures, this revolution-
ary in rags, could see so clearly
into the bones of America?
