September

It's September and like every September
decades running hand in hand, 
you come back on the breath 
of laundry soap and a song.
Why does the man remember what the boy can’t forget?
Rod Stewart sings, “It’s late September,”
and I am back in school,
a tiny bit of the man who will be
the boy who can’t forget.
You are the one who broke the seal and said,
“Begin your exam. You have the rest of your life.” 
No time to study and poorly prepared,
the test is the lesson,
a master piece submitted by the apprentice,
unfinished and unplanned, 
runs in the wet paint,
and graded by every woman who came after you.