Lacks Focus

My nephew’s got a 'C' in long division

and he’s holding it like a gold medal in the light.

It sent me back with a blurry sort of vision

to a shoebox of papers I kept out of sight.

'Lacks focus,' the teacher wrote in red ink,

scrawled on a progress report from ninety-four.

I smelled the old paper and started to think

about how many times I’ve walked through that door.

The blue lines are fuzzy where the damp got in,

and the grade is a ghost of a boy who felt small.

I’m still lacking focus, under the skin,

just a different man in a different hall.