A hero named Miles
taught school in Staggerford, Minnesota.

Around him, a cast of teachers and students.
Bright students, dull students,
creative students, boring students, bored students,
and the daughter of the bone woman.

Outside of class,
Miles was a mild Midwesterner.
He roomed with a Catholic school teacher,
sort of dated his neighbor,
lamented not marrying Anna Thea.
He called her Thanatopsis to her amusement
and her husband’s annoyance.

Miles was uncertain where his life was headed
until the day he become an accidental hero
and was mourned by the students, the landlady,
the sometime date, the bone woman’s daughter,
and Thanatopsis.