Seems Like Yesterday

I have not yet begun the process
of processing. Your mom called
tonight just to ask how I was doing--
your mom who has not seen you now
in over a year. At some point in time
we discuss your stone, what a testament
it is to you, how anyone reading it would
suddenly come to know you--not your
grieving family. I tell your mom that Molly
and I walked by there today and picked
up the debris left behind in the wake of last
week's storm. It's a small gesture, but one
that I am sure did not escape your eyes
or your spirit. I said to her Let's think
about getting together when Lauren's
home next weekend. We'll do shrimp
cocktail and cheap wine out-of-a-box,
we'll sit under the carport and do our
remembering-when things, but mostly
we'll do what we've always done--bitch
about the economy, rant about getting
older, crack a few jokes that send us
spiraling down to the asphalt, one
of us picking the other up from the warm
ground, wine spilling everywhere, loss
never far from our minds as we right
ourselves back into the lawn chairs,
still laughing, and when things get quiet,
we'll turn the conversation over
to those damned mosquitoes, biting
our exposed flesh, about how late it's getting,
about sleep or the lack thereof, about how
we'll be sure to get together more often,
about how fat the cat has gotten, about
the time you came up the driveway beaming
about your new job, two years ago now,
that smile of yours the only light each
of us needs out there in the darkness.