For You, Lewis
it was the last day of taking your class and the last time I saw you
i remember your offering the night you brought a bottle of wine
to commemorate our last day of class and poured us each a cup
you take, you take and you can have some more, you said to us
when it got to my turn, I refused the cup with a claim of falling asleep
and you pled the same with a soft belly chuckle and shaking your head
unlike you, life takes and takes and takes, until all is finished
you taught me what patience means through lines, rhymes and stanzas
the lessons dwell on the inside of me as I carry with me the memory of you
death has become you in its kind gesture or thievery, goodbye Lewis
BIBIANA OSSAI is a graduate of the M.F.A. creative writing program at Long Island University, Brooklyn, where she was awarded the Marilyn Boutwell Creative Writing Award for Fiction. She is the winner of Equinox Journal 2019 poetry contest. Her works appear in The River among other publications.