the poetry reading

your poetry
instructor from years ago
still reads
the same poems
he wrote
before you knew him.
every poetry reading,
you hear
the one about his son
dying.
the one about
his son, as a child
in school,
the one about his
son, the day he was
born.
he can't stop with
these poems, each year
at the podium,
clearing his throat
before he begins,
as if reading them
for the first time,
trying so hard
to bring him back
to life.