Another Dead Poet’s Society

Another Dead Poet’s Society

Like that secret Valentine passed

to the red headed girl

who sat in the back of the class,

carelessly opened it and laughed

and passed it on to her girlfriends

who giggled and pointed at you

in your sublime humiliation.

Like so many rejection slips

buried between the leaves

of dusty tomes and required readings,

they were sold for pennies at abused bookstores

and read by careless strangers

who tossed them away without remarks

into a crowded sky of dead poets.