15 September 2006 | Vol. 6, No. 3

Buffy Rerun Poem

by MICHAEL BRODER

It's one a.m. and I'm lying in bed,

watching a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,

talking to you on the phone.

I tell you Buffy is ice skating,

and you tell me it's the episode from season two

where the assassins come to attack Buffy at the skating rink,

and Angel leaps onto the rink to save her,

and afterwards they kiss

and Angel pulls away in a moment of self-loathing and says,

I still have my vampire face on,

and Buffy touches his bumpy vampire forehead and says,

I didn't even notice.

You are right, of course, about every detail —

they unfold on the muted screen at the foot of the bed

as I watch and you narrate from 200 miles away;

and Kendra appears just as you say she will,

the new slayer called up in Africa

when Buffy died fighting the Master

in the season one finale,

and Kendra sees Angel kissing Buffy,

sees that he is a vampire and that Buffy is his girl,

so she must be evil,

and so Kendra attacks Angel at Willie's tavern,

and locks him in the cage with the transom near the ceiling,

the eastern exposure where the sunlight will soon enter

and Angel will begin to sizzle.

And I remember all these details, but only one by one,

as you recount them to me;

and I recognize the scenes, but only one by one,

as they appear before me.

But you remember it all, all the time —

you go around like that, you live your life like that,

bearing the burden of memory for us both.