Kate Bernadette Benedict

History

To profess history!—
that’s alpha, I tell him,
that’s capital.
When we come to Lethe Hall,
with its federal manner,
I ask him, may I audit?

Notebooks flap open,
the classroom’s packed.
With his back to us,
he mumbles what he knows
to an empty blackboard.

I am the only one
who sees chalk marks,
who deciphers his laryngitic whisper.
I copy it all down
but the letters won’t stick.
One of many,
I copy it down in disappearing ink.