anniversaries

Spring semester, senior year of college, I took Maya Angelou's poetry class. I tried to take advantage of a celebrity professor, to earn two credit hours without much effort, to find my voice.

At that time, a decade ago, online enrollment was in its nascent stages. It was merely by the luck of the draw that I got a high enough lottery number to enroll in her course; my impending Bachelor of Arts in English did not guarantee me a spot in a Humanities course.

Since then, I've lived in four different states. I've loved, in varying degrees of truth, three different men. I've worked in (at least) 14 different office spaces. I read a poem from Maya Angelou's class at my college roommate's wedding.

I wrote this poem a decade ago, today. It is dramatic and true and yearning and mine.

*

scents

even my skin smells like you

the places around my lips, my fingers

that small place beside my hipbone

the mole on my right calf

even my heart smells like you

it reeks of you

of what you wont take

of what youve rejected

of what you stole

even my soul smells like you

especially my soul

march 5, 2002

*

I look forward to happier, more meaningful anniversaries in the next decade.