Tuition Costs
–Victor Depta
From The Helen Poems
I’d raised a child, practically
as if the end were something I’d thought about
prepared for, worked toward
when, in fact, I was amazed how little time was left
what with the ACT, SAT, the mailbox cluttered with
college ads
loan forms, tuition costs, room and board
as if I were packaging her, fully insured
for Berkeley, Davis, somewhere deliverable to
and tampered with, probably
opened like a certified intelligence.
I’d raised a child
as if a million million hadn’t done the same
yet it was fresh to me, fragrant as irises
as the climbing rose on the back porch
where I kept busy to distract myself
sawing fretwork, attaching it to the posts
and painting everything white, white as the roses
wonderfully unreal, a dream-labor
old fashioned as the moon in May, delicate
as she readied to go away.
