It was the last class of the semester, and the teacher asked if we would put up something meaningful, something we thought had weight. So anyway, he was next to last, and when it got put up, well I kind of went gasp , and then looked at him and then quickly away. So I ran to him after class and told him (mumbling mostly) how much it grabbed me, and I hugged him and he hugged back (some). But then I remembered I wouldn't be seeing him and I knew that the poem was going with him, so I sorta asked him to write it down in my journal. His longhand was pretty good for a guy, but he teared up and then I got weepy and well, it's kind of hard to read now what he said. It's OK. Because I think I memorized it. The moment sealed it like stationary wax.


It's an abandoned house
left on the edge of a long brown field
a family had lived there when I was a child

moved in, lived in, left.
we moved in for a summer
moved in, loved in, left

I looked at it across the field
across the road
What's it like to be abandoned

twice?