The young who wizen
Leave me grieving until my breathing stops.
For  many years I wallowed
With old photos.
One of Jim sporting a cast,
Holding court with a circle of friends
In the  damp cement cellar.
No more lines to flip,
No visages to make us laugh.

I used to hear his favourite tunes
Coming from his room.
Your's is a great loss,
A terrible trouble.
At sixteen we knew he was
A young Methuselah:
Green on the vine,
Unaged wine, a bitter pill.


Dying, dying, dying.

To love him was to leave him
In his last dark hours.
No brother could do more.
I feel the soft parting touch of his warm hand
After so many years.
And you, bold , and shy of seventeen,
You wrote, and I saved it, unexpectedly:
     “Peacocks dabbling through the wind
      Were the spectrum of her eyes.”
I knew I'd use it someday.
Today.