I knew four or five like him,
loping through the flicker
of the motor oil bonfire,
the tainted, boundless promise
of the devil's ďeal as plain
on their faces as the tattoos.

Always bracing and braced,
like quarry-blown stone
that only seems featureless
until you look enough
to see vein after vein
marbling it.

They are memory men,
resurrected by the news
that Lil Peep is gone,
they still stalk the fringes
of the old bonfires,
some of them consigned
to do so forever,
beer can in one hand,
***** in pocket,
the other hand full
of something, anything,
as long as it filled the hand.