Even in death you shone
from the grave, bigger
than life, and better somehow
than us, left living.
The pictures were
icons
gilded with
memories
and guilt. You were her boy,
way beyond your
age.
I saw you as older,
mature,
your vest jauntily
undone,
your tie loosened
as you read the
morning paper
front to back, a
mediocre cup
of coffee in your
hand,
like you were
somebody’s husband.
Nobody knew you’d
borrowed the gun,
or hid it in the
glove box
of your beautiful
Ford Fairlane.
No one would’ve
guessed
you’d use it to
muss your perfect hair
permanently, blow a
hole wide open,
where death could
get in
while your life
blew itself
out.
I thought I’d
missed something,
some important
detail
that kept nagging
me, years
later when I was
old enough to look back
and ponder your
line of thinking.
It didn’t figure
with the Chinese food and cake
you’d had us carry
in
for our mother’s
birthday party. It didn’t go well
with the nifty
three-piece suit
you so cavalierly
wore that night,
or the cigarette
pack you tapped
carefully against
your palm before you left.
“Packing in the
tobacco,” you said,
“makes it burn more
evenly.”
Your words twisted
around us
like the tag they
put on your big toe
when they wheeled
you into the morgue,
an apparent
self-inflicted wound,
right temple, just
above the ear.
I looked for that
hole as I eyed you
in your casket,
your face swollen
and nearly
unrecognizable. Death
does not go well
with youth, it isn’t
at all
attractive. You could say
you’d lost your
luster, big brother, it
had gone to hell in
a hand basket
and there you were,
my tarnished idol
in a medium-sized
box, one
of your natty suits
holding on
to your body,
holding on
for the next
incarnation.