By Prem Gongaju

A pupil’s call shook me out of my sleep.
“I finally understood what you said seven years ago.”
And he wanted to visit me for that.
“I don’t that way,” he added enigmatically.
And hung up after a quick goodbye.
Words did sway things this way/that way
Past the midnight hour.

Divorced, dropped out of college, he had been to Iraq.
Left sole prints on the blood soaked sands.
“I didn’t shoot to kill some Sunni souls,
Though it was my turn.
Perhaps they were Shiites.”

Seven months in the brig, a Private—
Disowned, dishonored and discharged—:
“Anyway, left the ’Raq and walked away.
(Time magazine took notice of his action.
Rather his non-action.)

I couldn’t recall what I said so long ago.
Talking to kids (spontaneous expressions of heartfelt feelings),
I said things I plucked out of flux, and in so many ways I said things
till the feelings became commingled into their existential beats.
A rhythm out of suffering.

I gave him my copy of Zorba. Zorba the Greek,
A film based on the book by Nikos Kazantzakis.

He looked happy when he waved
Goodbye.