In loving memory of Jevon Ward
he was speaking vodka,
a language that I understood
all-too-well
as I sat on the edge of his bed,
I handed him the joint
that I had just finished
carefully rolling
he lit it, and taking a small toke,
became suddenly
and uncharacteristically
serious
“You do know that I’m not life, right?”
it must have been obvious
that I had no clue
how to answer that,
so he continued,
“When I was just a little boy,
“your grandpa (and mine) told me,
“he said,
‘Son, you’ll pull time before you hit twenty.’
“At nineteen, I did six months.”
before he could say another word,
drunk people spilled into the room
and the party took over
it was as if the writer
of this dark comedy of errors
had carefully placed
the interruption into the script
for dramatic effect
years later,
I stood in the yard
with my father
one morning
we burned a mattress
in the yard
a mattress with
a peculiar red stain
on the top end of it,
right about where a man
would lay his head down
to sleep
smoke climbed high,
snaking its way through
the bare tree branches,
coating the limbs,
blackening the sun,
giving twisted new meaning
to the wind
with each searing crackle,
each hot little iron
that launched out of the flames,
the notion was solidified
that you would never be
with us again
the red stain
is forever removed,
taken off and away
from the bad blend of cotton
and synthetic fiber
its ugly lack of aesthetic,
permanently removed
from the eye
we have, instead,
embroidered you
into our hearts,
in gold-letter
on satin
a little redirection,
a simple trick
of the firelight
and the mind
a touch of
pre-approved manipulation,
vocabulary and memory,
now twisted
to suit ourselves
with semblances
of sanity
and you, all dressed up,
looking dapper
in a new suit
something to
bring you over
the threshold
in style
we have gathered
many flowers
you were one of them
now, on this rainy Saturday,
we gather more,
but none of them are as rare
or as interesting as you
still, we do so wish
that you were not so
still
now, we are all
so much more careful
with our words
we never had to
monitor our tongues before
we always counted on you
to say something
deliciously profane,
hysterical, sublime
you said things far more terrible
than we could ever manage
(or dare) to bring forth
from our fearful mouths
you said it all for us,
you, being our favorite devil,
you spared no words,
knowing full well that your time
was short
now, everything is
serious and sullen
ash settles on us,
stealing the still-warm
seat of smiles
we do our best
to preserve the integrity
of your memory
with all our words,
so clumsily polite and wrong
yours were so horribly accurate
your list of faults could fill volumes
all of these,
now consumed by fire
and forgetfulness
we will not miss them
we are, in fact, glad
to be free of these;
free from the weight
of your awful acuity
your spiteful condemnation
of this earth was always felt
hot upon our necks
even your parting words of
“Fuck this world!”
were a vicious pronouncement
of a pox on all our houses
that seething sentiment,
ever-present,
laced into the mix
of the cocktail that was you;
virtually indistinguishable
from the indiscriminate joy
of your cosmic jester voice
pouring out over our
wanting brains
we will not miss the
chaos of your actions,
or your allegiance to
an autocratic indifference
we only miss
everything else
but beneath all of the
intolerable heavy,
knowing of nothing else to do…
we dutifully
lift our eyes
to the coming days
where you
are not
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
Kevin Trent Boswell 