» Poetry

UPON GOOGLING AN OLD BOYFRIEND AND FINDING HIS OBITUARY

Terry Godbey 

Eleven years ago 

he checked outta here, 

dead at 58, 

just as I emerged 

from a cancer chrysalis. 

No mention of a wife 

or children, 

and no more chances 

for me to apologize 

for stomping on his heart 

40 years ago. 

The absence of kids 

stings a bit 

since his mention early on 

of having little Terrys with me 

was what sent me running, 

still a little Terry myself. 

I wasn’t expecting a man 

to want to stick around. 

Even I didn’t care that much 

for my company. 

I don’t remember 

breaking up 

or explaining anything. 

I just stopped  

answering my phone, 

heard his motorcycle  

stirring the summer night 

outside my apartment 

where I was kissing my new man. 

We ran into each other  

at the newspaper where we worked, 

wound up at the same parties 

where his eyes followed me everywhere 

and I accepted his cocaine 

but nothing else. 

He moved to D.C., where I heard he crashed  

his motorcycle, struggled with a brain injury, 

but in his 20s he was a sun-burnished god, 

all muscle and quick to smile. 

Good with his hands, he had built  

his own catamaran, and we sailed 

on the Banana River 

and in the Atlantic  

amid pods of dolphins. 

His sister left a cryptic online remembrance: 

Unfortunately, he took the wrong path in life. 

So many questions 

and no answers. 

See, here I go again, making it all about me.