Lesson
by Erin Murphy


On the same day one student plagiarizes
a poem from the obit page, another

writes a sonnet in which she buries
the line It’s the last day of Mom’s chemo,

the only reference to illness or doctors
or a daughter’s near-dance with grief.

One gets it; one gets it not. Like a violin
string tightened at both ends, I am taut.






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