mourning

How now killer?

I been thinkin' 'bout the old days,

back when we used to smash flat

pennies on the train tracks

That summer,

the cicadas mourning

in the morning fog,

before we knew what knowing was

before the panic

and the pangs of heartbreak

you and I we were

invincible

Sheriff Owens coulda never

caught you in a million years

and the name of my switchblade

was on the tip of every tongue in town

At least,

until the floods came.

We rusted apart

just like the old playground

down on Mill Street

in the pressures

of the rising tide.

a fallow fellowship,

a slow oxidizing death,

a rale

My mama used to say that

no one ever really dies,

not so long as they got

someone who remembers,

but no matter how many times

I whisper 'I love you'

your gravestone just won't say it back.