When You Left For College

at first it feels like summer camp in september, you will be back soon, but days become weeks, become more than a month & you aren’t home
at night, sometimes i think i hear your late arrival, as if you were still a high school senior, i thought those saturday nights would go on forever, they don’t, they can’t, time waits for no one, certainly not for some middle-aged man
sad in still moments, memory is love
you the dancer, the big sister, the teacher, the basketball player, the driver, the instagram addict, the celsius drinker, the friend to many
& so i just stare at this screen & wait for thanksgiving.

Sleeping Outside In College

bunk beds stacked, thin mattresses
on steel spring decks, this cloistered
container, dorm room coffin where
20-year old boy-men play loud music
ska, reggae, rap, sometimes Phish

trapped inside institutional time
grab sleeping bag, late April night
up fir tree trail to quiet hilltop where
moths float over darken meadow
endless bedroom, alone for slumber