How Not to Lose Those Students When You’re a Lesbian English Teacher

by Julie Weiss

Ivan Aleksic

Even though the camera won’t be turned on, apply a tinge of lipstick before your class:

bombshell pink or scarlet work best. When he joins Zoom, sing a sweet note

into your good morning spiel and smile as if sashaying down a catwalk.

Just because he’s married with kids doesn’t mean head tilt and hip sway

aren’t boxes on his mental checklist of requirements for a good teacher.

Ask her to tell you about her family, the easiest and most enjoyable topic

to discuss in a foreign language, but beware: once she’s learned how to construct

a proper interrogative, she’ll possess the tools to pry open your life. Mind your

pronouns; always remember to say he or him

when referring to your wife — Oscar works

far better than Olga when your toddler’s belly needs filling on a daily basis

and your wallet hasn’t stopped wailing since the beginning of the course.

Once you’ve taught him to use second conditional, sidestep questions of a volatile nature

such as: “If you won the jackpot, would you quit your job and travel around the world?”

because they’re likely to backfire on your screen, and in a moment of oceanic reverie, you might

forget yourself, awash in all colors of sunset, your wife floating, goddess-style, in a seabed

of your kisses, which wouldn’t be a point in your favor come time for satisfaction surveys.

If you’re an excellent professional, after a few months of vocabulary exercises

her repertoire of words and expressions will have multiplied like (insert pest)

and although most students hang their beliefs on a coat rack before stepping

into your virtual classroom, she may lure you into a theological debate about who, in fact,

healed her twisted ankle. However miraculous her anecdotes may be, don’t forget that

her god will never consider your relationship anything less than an abomination. Thus,

if your lesson plan today involves elucidating the language of comparison and contrast,

you’d be wise not to add wedding venues to your list of example topics. Of course,

you’ll want him to request you again in autumn, and that’s perfectly understandable,

just follow one final guideline: on the last day of class, if, against your better judgement,

you whoop and whirl about your baby-to-be and he wishes you a swift, healthy delivery,

under no circumstances admit to him that you’re not the mother who’s pregnant.

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Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay Books. She won Sheila-Na-Gig’s Editor’s Choice Award for her poem “Cumbre Vieja,” was shortlisted for Kissing Dynamite’s 2021 Microchap Series, and was named a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her recent work appears in Gyroscope Review, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART, and others. Originally from California, she lives in Spain with her wife and two young children.