Elementary
1 Minute Read Time
Associate Editor Blessing Christopher: In Littlejohn-Oram’s miCRo, memory is shown to be imperfect but highly malleable.
Listen to William Littlejohn-Oram read “Elementary”:
Elementary
When I’m alone and not expected home,
I pull over at the gates of the old school
overlooking I-35. Time broke the windows.
Wind stole the signs. Only metal ribs remain
of the tarp gym. Shades behind broken glass
ripple like heat waves. My own history imperfectly
replays itself here: me at the front step,
stopping to wave back to my mother
before dissolving through boarded-up doors.
The school sags, full of little ghosts.
The walls reek of forgottenness.
My memory’s fading troop sweeps the steeple,
the roof, the floors. They mow the lawn.
