slipping past defenses
college football on the TV,
two teams no one particularly cares about,
yet the game entertains, diverts,
the scroll of scores in other games
swiftly crawls across the bottom of the screen,
and yet we talk of important things,
those sick now and their struggles,
it’s as if the chips of the football game
distract us into being able to chew on the tough meat
our thoughts and words tend to avoid,
we go back to my brother slipping away,
of him as husband, father, son, brother,
of avoidance and reality,
we laugh at anecdotes of him and his temper,
of cooking and smoke,
and of a smoke detector flung into the woods,
of him when most alive,
and of him denying to speak of the ending,
there are many plays simultaneously going on around us,
we are drawn to our friends and their roles,
particularly in the tragedies,
and we do not know which act we ourselves are in,
and whether our end will be tragedy or comedy.
by Henry H. Walker
November 27, ‘15
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