Dear Holden,

You sat in my class,
fourth seat by the window.
Dressed in Goth, you dozed,
responding only when Robert Burns
hoped to meet a body
Comin' though the rye.

You awoke to Gardner's Grendel,
raised your middle finger
to the unresponsive sky,
joined the adolescent monster in howling,
complained classmates looked at life
without observing.
Walking the halls with Grendel,
you muttered to your shadow.

Responding to stirrings of spring,
crocus jaws snapped on the school lawn.
The Shaper spoke to you,
the pull of poetry
in blood-worm and bone-cage.
You said his songs lured you
to The Fire Dragon's lair,
the furnace room.

You labeled Beowulf phony,
Unferth a drunken braggart.
At the end of the semester,
turning to the girl behind you,
you whispered Phoebe, murmured,
If only there were more
honest sisters in my world.