Mercer’s Autumn Leaves dying as the computer’s stream ends.
Dimming lights on empty offices vacated and un-refilled.
Passing hand and eyes over remnants of the recently retired:
books, quotes, students’ simple gifts, rests for necks, backs, wrists,
“you’re the best” plaques, pictures of them and others,
still filled files, mementos of moments, and more books.
Odd criteria for what’s kept, left or taken.
Cannonball’s rendition of Autumn Leaves weeping in the ear,
so many years and the memory of these professors’ canon
reduced to what we might recall, retell, reclaim, from these discards.
Work relationships hardly yield longer terms, and more days
will distance us outside of even memory – such is waste.
Walking past the temptation of the café, a glance,
no one known well enough to share a colada.
Floating in halls between the unfilled classrooms,
parallels the space between now empty offices.
I’m missing those i never got to know.
Into the cafeteria and the smells of old grease and tepid fries,
still “fries” reminding of better fries, then best,
those i ate with Pop in Jerry’s Sandwich Shop –
Fresh potatoes, fresh oil, and a quick hand off to the basket,
Drunk on Boylan Root Beer, chilled and straight from the bottle,
Pop’s reminiscence of days on Atlantic City’s Boardwalk,
Winning the prettiest baby contest, in a dress of his times,
And now this becomes my memory, and my nostalgia, and my fear.
