Dismissed
Bart Edelman
__________
You say you’re sorry;
It won’t happen again.
Attempt a feeble apology,
Showing a bit of remorse.
Yet I’m not asking for anything,
Foolishly deceiving me again.
That ticket’s been punched
Far too many times
To think admission is possible.
No, what I have in mind
Doesn’t really concern you.
Rest assured, you’re dismissed.
Expelled from a school
I kept open for fear
Neither of us would graduate.
But, today, you’re free to ditch,
As often as you’d like.
Revel in the truant state
You never once denied.
It all makes sense now—
And not a moment too soon.
Yes, I’ve tested out of a class
I didn’t realize I took,
Until I chose to live without you.
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Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Red Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Red Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Red Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Red Hen Press), Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press), and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023 (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.
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Posted in Winter Extravaganza and tagged in #boudin, #poetry, Poetry