Hoping to transmute the sad I try reframing as John’s latest writing prompt like in the 1983 Wallingford class when he’d say “Start the poem with a child’s question” except this time it’s “Start with meeting me in 1968 and make it a list poem” so here goes: Riding shotgun in his blue beetle to see 2001 at Cinema-19 the senior year afterschool writing class we practically begged for the Jackson Street cool-place-to-bring-a-date apartment with the glow-in-the-dark bedroom ceiling moon and stars and tea cups that whistled the Morrison-like “swim to the moon“ in the Springton Reservoir the Wallingford classes Geese the sweat lodges at Ridley Creek and in his Wawa house backyard woods the solstice party on Engel my kids marveling at his treehouse The White Farm House the dinners the readings the chapbooks the inscribed ex-libris gifts the Good Friday Last Temptation gatherings the Candlemas party . . . Stop. Feeling like the Oscar winner hearing the opening notes of the play-off music and blurting “I know I’m forgetting something” so will have to zoom out like Hamlet to Horatio Act 1 Scene 2 grandiose maybe a cliche maybe but nonetheless true: “He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.”