Today's poem is by Tina Barry
The Little I Remember
for Robert Herman
Twice a year when sleep eludes, I type your name
into the internet, add "obit," assuming the dark locus
consumed you. On your Facebook pagea girlfriend had posted pictures of your last days
together, waist-deep in the Adriatic,
arm in arm at an exhibit of your photos.The scar above your wincing smile
held the same power it had 40 years ago,
when I'd board a bus for a two-hour tripto your gray-edged room in the Lower East Side.
I brought offerings: perfect avocados,
tickets to plays I couldn't afford,my young body to shine beneath your window's
pleat of moon. I tried to be enough.
Years later, after I had married, I wheeled my babypast a coffee shop, where I spotted
you, huddled at a table for one, eyes locked
on an invisible enemy. My grief sat heavy. Relief, too,as I peered into the pink carnation
of my daughter's face, grateful
you weren't her father.Oh, Robert. You had asked me
How do you enjoy life? I wanted to believe
you had found the answer,but you scribbled the same question
on a note right before
you jumped.
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Copyright © 2022 Tina Barry All rights reserved
from Rattle
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission
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