Elegy on a Former Student’s Dying

Elegy on a Former Student’s Dying

Seth Wieck

For Kinsley

You argued with me over a paper
when you were fifteen. (Yes, it’s been nine years.
How does one memory plant itself and grow
while a thousand others don’t? This is beyond my control.)

Your pencil pinned to paper, then staked to the desk
through the period at the end of the sentence.
You said, “But this is true.” Maybe it was me who had argued.
Then you told me a story about your brother.

The one who died when he, and you, were young.
The sadness touched everything.
No bulbs burned bright enough.
No letters you learned spelled a reason.

I wanted to stay and finish the conversation.
What did you learn? But I was the teacher
and your classmates sensed my attention
slide away from them.

The year ended. I moved to another school.
You graduated. I saw you at Mass
on Sundays when you were in town. I got to
know your family who survived the sadness too.

Nine years of passing greetings. Now I have this news.

The story of your brother, and now of you, keeps writing itself in me.
I expect to know how the conversation ends
when the wards of my attention aren’t calling after me.

And you and I will say together, “This is true.”

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Seth Wieck
Poet & Writer

Seth's poetry and stories have appeared in Narrative Magazine, the Langdon Review of the Arts, and the Broad River Review where he won the Ron Rash Award in Fiction. He lives in Amarillo with his wife and three children. You can read more of his work at sethwieck.com.

Photography by Mathilde Langevin