Professors Liebski

He sits at the table upright and alert, unshaven for days and his glasses shining in the light, wearing my favorite shirt (go Aggies!), torn jeans, grey socks, right fingers pulsing over the remote keyboard as they have been for an hour. Data entry. For future research - his own project, finally, not one he's paid for but one he can choose and direct. I have spent my time curled awkwardly on our couch with Pharr in my hands chunking out another hundred lines, this time about Jupiter talking to Venus and promising glory and kingdoms for her poor Aeneas. We haven't sat like this and worked together, academically speaking, in years and I had been afraid it was something that had been lost to us immediately upon marching through the grass, hot and sweating in black, two years ago. Our fourth year we saw each other mostly in the library: he would be there, I would come after class, start to read, fall asleep, he would wake me up when he left. The few times I managed to keep myself conscious we would read quietly and I would try to take his hand again and again but we would lose contact for every page turn and eventually give up. This is better: in our own space, the comfort of speech allowed, snacks on demand, breaks to buy plane tickets and search for Bears' hats. I look at tonight and realize that what they say is true - the future is now. This life works.