I was a thin child
playing in the backyard
in February of 1989,
when I was called inside
& readied for the funeral
of my first cousin, once removed.

For many years
I remembered it
being a cicada year.
but my memory was wrong:
1987 was the year
I put my hand to a tree
& accepted a sleeve
of placid red eyes.
I also thought
there were leaves falling,
but that too was wrong:
by February, they were
fine brown powder.

The family gathered at Arlington,
I stood stiff in my good clothes
& remembered him
as best as I could,
alarmed by how sober everyone was,
& by the unending white teeth
of the earth, breaking through
all around me.

After, in the car,
my mother told me
about the accident in 1958
that took 31 years to **** him.
He "lived a kind
of private hell," she said.
At nine, I barely understood,
was terribly shaken.
I thought about it
alone in my room
for decades.

After that funeral
it took years for a death
to move me more than
the cold day when I was driven
to my cousin's body
and his unmoving blood,
which was lowered to a place
where I could not see it.