1.write a poem, she says, abouta time you felt otheredi'm not in the class, butsince i'm here, i write naming the names i was namedthe last--so devastating so ugly--a wordI hardly dare sayfaggot, they called mea thing to be tied and burnedfeels like divestment tosay--it--aloudfor the first time, I amnaked and not ashamed 2.my brother reads 1 without my knowing andmocks me with its linesin my anger I shoot at a conceit and accidentallyhit a rhymeyou peeped over my Shoulder-wallI didn't ask you toto Where I keep my heart by dayaway from Public viewturn in that poem foranother class 3.yet another professorasks for poems from the classsent him 1 and 2 for his reviewbefore, and soI look in my pantry and finda poem thereon a box, a recipe forcolored sugarand the line fell from my mouthnobody calls it white sugar maybe it's wrong to quote yourselfmaybe self-reference is lazy and passebut maybe we only write for ourselvessubmitto a professor or a journal or a scholarshipbut only really ever toits own logic