Campus streets
College jeans
Drinking
Excitement
Football teams
Tuition fees
Classroom leans
Confusion
Home
Dorm room dreams
Finals it seems
Ready to scream

Ease this margin with your brittle fingers
Touch and replenish
Nothing lost
Except your son
Waiting for you
On the staircase
Benevolent friend
Made clear
And your dreams
Cried out
Through the garden
My legs were made whole
My eyes
Track every particle
Till your lovely return

Please
Please let me get what I want
Be present
Shining down
Your eyes
Crouched
By the window frame
With mortal flesh
Beam light
Through the doorway
As you collapse
On my couch

Loss of fear
Inexplicably
Became fear of loss

You told it was important
Told me it was the last thing you had
A brutal honesty about you
Crying from denial
A broken keyboard
A fast laugh or two
Mostly from your brother
Or the girl behind the counter
Just at once
Your parents
Fast asleep
Watching the ball drop
My friend in the crowd
Stolen wine
Given time
How precious this was
So it was taken
Away

Oh we lay for a while
Bleaching in the city sun
Carefully awaiting
Reproach
The bustling traffic below
Chain-smoking a dozen Camels
Hearing for the first time
Our, call
Mall entrances
Cafe doorsteps
Bus stations
Even you
Even you didn't know you would go away
So for the first time
Let it be the last time
Gone

His younger brother died
Some time ago
So he sat and cried
Eating his happy meal
Ironically
Sitting on the fourth church pew
We sang hymns
He prayed curses
To a God that didn't seem to hear
Or a mother that wore too much make-up
A father that beat him every day
Wise eyes
Written on his face
At such a young age
Now
As I stroll the grounds
Feeling you six and a half feet beneath
I learned what you knew
All along
How can you not pity his place?
Should have known
For fear of the footsteps
At bedtime