As Charged
The jury found you guilty
in just an hour and fourteen minutes.
Long enough for bathroom breaks
and a single show of hands.
Your public defender
advised you to cop a plea,
but mom borrowed a suit and black shoes
and dressed you as an innocent man.
I remember the letters best—
years of writing back and forth.
I told you of my slowly changing
life and you told me stories
of ancient gods and heroes
confined to lonely islands.
So many lonely gods.
So many empty islands.
We learned last week
you weren’t coming home
again, though mom hoped
you might someday.
She kept your room as it was
and now can’t pass it by,
sits in your favorite chair
with thoughts I can only imagine.
My dad
had a two week retirement.
Just long enough to drive
the Packard to Deerfield Beach
and help unload the U-haul.
He’d worked since he was ten
and would have loved some time
to tell bad jokes and play
some serious pinochle,
but he and mom needed the money.
He would pack a thermos of coffee,
a couple of cheese sandwiches,
and a chunk of apple cake
and head out most nights
to his job as a watchman
at a development under construction.
Mom and the neighbors
took to calling him The Sheriff.
Dad was not courageous
Vowing to deal with thieves by asking,
“You guys need an extra pair of hands?”
One Last Thing
My key, burnished
for fifty years,
slips smoothly
from my hand,
as if it wished
to ask me
if I’m sure.
You would
often say
“if I had a dollar”
and I thought
of all the times
I had passed though this door
and how I might
spend my incredible wealth.
There is a last time
for everything
I suppose—
some day our sun
will explode
and earth will
become a cinder.
But we rarely
think of that.
We don’t live
on the precipice
of never again
until one day
we lock the door
and walk away.