History Class
Here’s that dream again.
This time it is history class I did not go to,
did not read the book,
didn’t even buy the book.
It is lunch time before the final exam,
I have a pile of note cards with someone else’s writing on
them
and I do not even glance at them.
I go to a party, I cry,
try to figure out how I can graduate without this credit.
Always before, when I had this dream,
it was math class.
That I can understand. There is precedent.
Or ballet recital and I had forgotten my shoes,
the hard pink toe shoes with long ribbons to wind around my ankles
and lamb’s wool to tuck in the toes,
situations that caused flutters of breath in the lower chest,
involuntary prayers for success,
where failure was as real as Sunday papers,
as possible as sore and scabby knees.
Does this dream revise my own history
or reflect it?
I know it warns me to scan the notes
that I don’t remember taking,
surround myself with smart people who study,
resist crying at parties, no matter
how my eyes burn.
It reminds me that I have survived failure,
to take credit where I can.
First Published in Emrys Journal
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