November 2004 & 2009

Sitting on a plane headed to Kennedy Int'l Airport with a group of colleagues.
I crane over to see Erik, who has
(mysterious to me at the time)
been consuming trashy art magazines for the entire duration of our travel.
Despite our relatively little contact over the semester,
I ask him how to spell the word 'triumvirate'.
He doesn't know and I continue writing a poem with words I thought
that I had completely made up.


Sitting with my feet hanging out of Bret's Parent's Papasan Chair.
Alone, I come across the word again.
Appearing beside--I think, Octavius; Confucius; Greece; Rome;
in the Index for the 'Harvard 5 Foot Bookshelves'
- a compendium of important, or famous Western literature.

Me, stammering internally
that golden coin of vocabulary at once ignited
the triforce of personal politics playing out in my current living situation.