called from my perch
of stone
and brick
to the vineyard
and the fireflies
I am reminded of a New England night
when you and I were not
on opposite sides of the earth.
Not east to west
but above ground
and below it.
As if all I had to do
was plunge my fist into the earth
and pull you out gasping.
You would smile your crooked smile
as if you were just being mischevious again
and I would wipe the dirt from the corners of your eyes,
brush off the rotted bits of your cheeks,
and we would go to Perry's for tequila shots
and pretzels.

There is a week in August
when the Cape Cod skies are host
to the whims of astronomy
and a thousand meteors shower the beaches
to echo the phosporescence in the tide.

You loved those nights.
When getting high beside the ocean
still left you breathing
in the morning.

It was during that week
that we'd met in the sand.
Your new piercing; a silver six
that split your philtrum and made me laugh so.
Your hand an umbrella over your lip,
the giddy pleasure I took in stretching your smile
until the pain of your impulse revisited you
and you were forced to out the intruder.
I always could take the piss out of you better than anyone.
And didn't you count on it.

A year later I went to see your mother (whom as you know I'd never met).
I went in search of the parts of you
you had yet to reveal; the stories left half told.
You would have laughed to see me on that doorstep,
in my shorts and vest, all limbs revealed
to show I wore no tracks.
Only summer tan and sand dune muscle.
I wasn't one of those friends.

There was a polaroid on the fridge.
You laughing, cheeks sunken, eyes like bruises,
the plastic bracelet from the hospital still on your left wrist.
You were munchin' on mozzarella sticks with your little brother.
Your little brother.
I didn't even know you had one.
How old would he be now?
And how angry?

Nick,
its been so long since I thought of you like this.
An admission that at one time would have filled me with guilt.
It's time to let it go.

I washed your mothers dishes
and killed pantry moths with a paper towel.
She said she couldn't reach
but she just couldn't kill anything that day.
I reached around the flour,
old tubes for frosting birthday cakes.
"I'm so glad you're so nice,
and so pretty," she said.
My freckled skin erased her fears
that your life had been consumed by ugliness.

You know, she came to call me her daughter-in-law.
I can see you shaking your head, well,
I gave her that.
But the title became too heavy.
I could not carry it. And when her need
to create her own truths of your life
robbed me of an honest memory
it was more than I could bear.
Like you had done so many years earlier
I walked out of her kitchen
and away from her pain.

And the little boy in the polaroid
what was his name?

Far from the crooked tip
of Massachusetts
a shower of earth-bound meteors
remind me.

Daniel,
I think.