spadterforge -For M.W.

I was standing in the kitchen when my mother told me.
Importance happens in the kitchen, at my house.
He was sitting on his bed
it was Christmas Eve
he was on semester break from college
the house filled with relatives.
I imagine the room as smallish, a flat green or
blue cotton bedspread, you know the ones, ribbed,
more of a cover than anything to keep us warm.
His brother walked in on him and the story goes:
he said, ‘Watch this.’ and pulled the trigger.
I imagine what happened next -
family running down the hall
brother in a state of shock
or maybe, he lunged toward him
in one of those slow motion moves of desperation
air like quicksand sucking him away from his intent.

We were both on the track team in high school
Bishop Grimes, to be exact.
Once during cross-country season,
he cheered me on at the end of a race
yelling at me, ‘Push! Don’t give up!’
He taught me to slant my body forward
over the finish line.
I always wanted him -
sleekness, dark eyes, brilliant smile,
the way his hair sort of kicked up over his ears
or stuck to his head with sweat after a run.
In our yearbook, a page was dedicated to him.
the caption across the bottom read,
“Lord, help me remember that nothing is going to happen
today that you and I together can’t handle”.
He didn’t remember…or maybe he thought of it
at the last second.
Has the Lord forgiven him for being weak
for being confused, for suffering from a broken heart
or a surge of disappointment so great
it would cause him to do what he did
on Christmas Eve?
I don’t pretend I’ll ever know the whole story.
You know how twisted details become after traveling
from one set of lips to another.
But I do wonder what would have been,
if I had the courage
or the confidence
to love him.