after "Bag of Mice" by Nick Flynn in Some Ether:
Remembering a Poem
I dreamt our first assignment
was to memorize one of your poems
& the poem was about remembering. The poem
recorded a suicide,
shooting
after pilltaking. The memory,
not lessened by time, sketched the poem
across a white page. I sang out lines
& as your feelings loomed through the stanzas
of remembered moments
your mother shifted around to show
me my mother, & the poem
drew closer.
Fellow Students
I dreamt the writing class
was filled with people I knew from a previous life,
& in that life were too many lovers. The life
turned into graduate school,
never-ending
lectures and workshops. My lovers,
deferring graduation, extended their lives
another semester. I sat writing
& as the page count of my thesis
neared one hundred
my characters drove my manuscript
like ghost minds, & the lovers
circled my wagons.
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