Jacket

by Cheryl A. Rice

I could wax romantic about 

how beautiful he was, 

dashing around LA on his Vespa, 

filming the planetarium, the valley, 

but truth is, after 18 he was

mostly a mystery to me. 

Godmother to his only son, 

I have now lost my god and my brother, 

one imaginary from the start, 

born of a need for companionship, 

fully formed in beard and heart; 

the other trapped in my mind’s loop, 

if anywhere, hellos, goodbyes, 

only the phone a constant. 

Our sister finds tickets 

in the pocket of his heavy leather jacket

for flights, concerts, movies 

at the Chinese theater, 

that we never heard about.

Like me, after giving our home a go,

he sprang across the continent, 

false hopes fueled by a high school friend. 

It’s fuzzy for me from that point on, 

third-hand updates, quick calls

from a telemarketing gig, surveys I would complete

over and over, just to hear his voice. 

I hear him now, when I cross the bridge to work,

calls about our sister’s illness, 

brief, funny, and yet, 

he is the one who dies first.

He is the one at the edge of another beginning, 

fallen into the chasm

we are all fated to achieve. 

He was beautiful, he was bold, 

a sort of hero for me in a family

of fear and lost horizons.

Off he goes into the sunset, 

silhouette of someone I used to know, 

steam rising from the canyons before him.

~

Twice a Best of the Net nominee, Cheryl A. Rice’s books include Dressing for the Unbearable (Flying Monkey Press), Until the Words Came (Post Traumatic Press), and Love’s Compass (Kung Fu Treachery Press). Rice can be reached at dorothyy62@yahoo.com. For updates on the Poetry World of Cheryl A. Rice, go to: http://flyingmonkeyprods.blogspot.com.