Ode to Room 330

You don’t know what you missed
when your shoe broke on the bus,
the room spun out of control
talking of sweat and chest hair.

The voice meant to read, makes
my words more pure, even
exhorting me to get real, get
a skateboard, get a baseball hat.

We ran our hands through the sand
near castles greying like pigeons, framed
ourselves in repetition, rhyme, numbers
and pants. Someone made love to a guitar,

it wasn’t me. I read, and wrote
sitting next to clear beauty, cold
air on our shoulders like film
stars without fur coats.

The young walk off to a summer
they won’t remember. I am here
to remember for them, the mother
in my room full of burning poets.

Today is the last day of poetry month. It is also the last official day of my poetry class. I have been blessed with a group of talkative, interesting and iconoclastic undergrads who made me see things as I hadn't before. My TA deserves special mention, not only because he is a great poet, but because he helped me see things in a new and different way. And he's getting married! I would write him a poem, but we all know how I feel about marriage right now, so it's best I leave that one to the romantics in the group.