for Sunil
I'm always eight, you're always fourteen
in the long time ago that lasts forever
I know now I'll never see you again
you have other people to haunt and anyway
they probably want to hang with you--
the dad you lost at two, your young uncle...
all those men in your family who died young
it's why your mother, grandmother, sister
dote on you, as if to try to keep you forever
I wondered how you had more friends than books
I confused you too--I remember when you
congratulated me about my school exams,
and seemed so confused why it was important...
I mean--you were so rich you didn't have to work
--and I don't think you did even at 40, right?
but you were always kind... if a bit ganja-fueled
when a single kindness could keep me happy
for days. I wonder at my dad saying
I shouldn't be alone with you... I feel you loved
my gentle dad, wished he were yours
in the sheerness of the childhood--
which brightened us up... now only if this end
too could lift us up... instead it sets us adrift...
as if to warn us we're going... extinct
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Pic: An icy, windy day--but oh, such brilliantly blue, sunshiny skies. A long walk with Big A to the MSU Baseball stadium.