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.