"The Final Exam"

A poem about the melancholy of final exam day. (Written - 2009)

“The Final Exam”

 

I need a pencil, I think. I really

need a cup of coffee. As I take my

seat, an orchestra of rustling paper

echoes through the classroom, and everyone

strains desperately to fill that

 

dark cob-webbed corner of their brain

with one final crumb of information.

I, however, have concluded that such

an act is similar to Uncle Mark's last

Sunday dump run before the football game--

 

any fact that I pile into the back

of my mind at 9:59 will inevitably tumble

over the tailgate and be in fifteen

scattered pieces on the pavement

when I need it at 10:02. Of course,

 

that's assuming I get my exam by 10:02--

which I don't. The little balding professor,

with his John Lennon specs and clip-on

bow tie, stumbles into the room at 10:08,

siphoning eight ergonomic minutes

 

of my "exam experience" clean out from

under me. The slightly wrinkled, photocopy

of an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper he hands

me is blotted with four numbered questions

scribbled in a barely legible cursive.

 

And in the fifteen minutes I've spent

arguing with myself about how I could have

used those eight lost minutes to figure out

what in the world the first question says, I

probably could have finished the thing. 

 

I rummage through the first three short

answer questions in search of something I

think I understand, and scribble down some

answers that might be just good enough to make

me seem as smart as I pretend to be.

 

And continuing on to the last question, I'm

relieved to find out it's multiple choice--

yet somehow I find it a shame that there's

only one multiple choice question, 'cause

otherwise I could at least draw pictures with

 

the dots. I stare magnetically at the question

for the final five minutes of the period, and

try to convince myself there’s a point to this.

As the bell rings and the masses head for the

exits, there’s one thing left to do--I circle

letter "C".

Reviews

[Sarah J. Mendonca]

I like how something that would normally be a short story was turned into a poem. Clever.