Afterlife
       

In the hot summers of childhood,
we'd wade a mile in the river—
you, up against the current,
and I, down toward the sea.
And we screamed like bloody birds,
so before we met at the bend,
I heard your calls strafe the air.

And then we stood, face to face,
at a fattening of the river,
next to a beach, rough with granite and quartz,
minnows' lips on our legs,
a cold ache in our feet,
shadows of water skeeters—
like bunches of black grape—
flickering along the floor.

Suzie, I never lost you
through the brutal climb
of our twenties, our failed marriages,
your treks to Kauai, your plummets
down the ski runs of Bear Valley.
When we'd meet, you'd kiss me on the lips,
tell me Schnapps cured a cold,
say you liked waking up higher,
close to the sun,
so you settled in gold country,
waiting tables and selling real estate—
then, at fifty-four, you were gone,
your stomach full of bourbon and Oxycontin.

I still live on the same stream-cut terrace
high above the dwindling creek.
Your mom's old house on the floodplain—
sold now—full of strangers.
I wish I could tell you how seldom
I go to the bottomland, how there are gates
on the trails, and the land, disgruntled,
sends up walls of slick poison oak.
How the herons lift and glide away, legs trailing,
their calls on the wind.

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Copyright © 2020 Dion O'Reilly All rights reserved
from Ghost Dogs
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission