NOTES FROM A LECTURE

Part 1: Finding a Seat

He chooses his seat carefully
Not the front row

Not too far back
Not anywhere his eyes

Can swivel to look at her
And look again

Not too far from her though.
He sits.

Directly in front of her,
Warmed by her breath

And the gaze
At his back.


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Part 2: The Middle of the Lecture

Prof. Sakinawa
Does not know Prof. Ichiguro.

Still, disrupting the lecture
By leaving in the middle

And embarrassed by it
She moves on tiptoe,

Eyes sliding in the distance
Until she sees

Another pair
Familiar to her as a mirror

Prof. S does not know Prof. I--
Yet she unclips her smile.


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Part 3: The Departure

At the time
Her pen alights

To describe
The clear flare

The speaker
Lit in her brain

The words vanish
As if in a puff of smoke.


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