I carried the envelope home with care—
or with the deliberate slowness of the dreading—
the report card with its columns of assessment
and the comment that my parents would be reading.

The number on the page was not my worth,
though no one told me that with full conviction,
and so I held it like a verdict—
and the holding was its own affliction.

Report card: the distillation of a season
to a number and a teacher's measured phrase—
I have spent the years since learning the full truth:
the number was not the measure of my days.
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