flowers for Robert Waddell: an elegy

 we
 kill by devaluation
 ad(s) tell us who’s worth something
 junct(ion) of
 professors in a meeting
 every person there knows one
 day contingent faculty will tire
 when they can’t visit five campuses anymore
 I insist on
 bring(ing) food, offering stipends
 up for time in workshops
they don’t even know your
work, how you made a name
in Latinx expertise, they
have to pretend
their work is harder to
accomplish, but I remember
you journalist, the poets who(se)
talent you
lauded proudly, you are alive in me