“Invictus” opens in theatres next week. Za’id and I will go see it. I’m excited about it, but he isn’t. In order to get him interested, I dragged him down to the den. In the den, I have poems pasted to the magazine holder on my stationary bike.
“Read this aloud,” I say.
“‘Invictus’ by William Henley, he begins. When he’s done, I drill him on the poem’s meaning. I can’t help myself.
I say, “I hope that reading this poem has made you more interested in the movie.”
“No, if anything it’s made me less interested,” he quips.
“What?” I say. “I should make you learn the poem.”
“Why?” he asks.
“So you can have it down in here.” I point to his chest.
“Like you made me learn that Langston Hughes poem?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “When life gets hard, you’ll have this poem to call up.”
“I want need to memorize it; I’ll just pull it up on the Internet.”
