The other night I dreamt
I was kissing your stomach again—
it was taut yet supple.
Then the next day, while
I was uploading assessment
rubrics to OneDrive,
from a world away, you messaged, asking
which curriculum theory did I favor?
Dunno.
Let me do some reading.
Am I a mini-scholar teaching
students to see the world through my lens?
You’re married and a mother now;
I’m a single man with adult children.
Should my classroom curricula
train students to be able Americans?
Neither of us live in America: I left for work
while you relocated with your husband.
Do I allow students to choose
what and how they learn?
I wonder why you chose to message me—
hope everything is really ok.
Should my students be activists
ready to dismantle and rebuild the country?
After not speaking for many years,
we chat now and then as friends.
Dunno which theory I favor
All of them?
We have a polite conversation about your query,
and then you return to writing your paper.
And I go back to remembering
the way my lips felt pressed against
the skin of a tightening plum
way back on that wintery night.
…
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