You are as close to me now
as you were then, years back
when the news came - the morning
you went upstairs over
your store, and like a sweet-
toothed child, stuffed the licorice
end of a shotgun into
your mouth. I still see you
in that small room, your shadow
squashed like a chocolate
on the wall, and in the window
a big scoop of vanilla
where the sun lay frozen on
the cone of an elm. That scene
is still so everyday
to picture, so ordinary
to imagine, not hideous
at all. I can see you
rummaging in a nickel
bag of tricks for a whiste
and finding instead the gum-
drop tip of your finger
stuck to that trigger you
pulled. Now, as I look
hungrily at the toffee
pull of years that somehow
must be stretched endlessly
to make sense, your strange courage,
cold as a Popsicle, sharp
as peppermint, is clearer
now than then. I still think of you
whenever I laugh at my own
mistakes; whenever I place
my hands like pastry on a table.