TO J.C., DOWN THE STREET

​This is for you because I don’t want to mourn you,
but your ghost is too alive and I am too old
for you to haunt my kitchen and make me remember
other young men, and women too, dead like that--with a bullet
or a noose, a clever pair of scissors, the diligent black
blade of a knife, soothing soft white powder,
dull pile of pills, or stinking closed garage--
I don’t want to hear the endless ringing
of the telephone or the slow answering machine:
“I’m not here right now. Please leave a message.”

What you wanted was not too far away--
that ancient lovely melody we all know
but hear only in fragments.

I heard it in your heart that pumped out call after call
as you followed the basketball around your father’s
empty driveway, and I walked by
and I said nothing;
you played ball and looked at me
as you turned your back, lifted your arm,
and scored a goal to impress a stranger.

Why didn’t I hum the melody I heard
and challenge you to another game?