to a cousin
my only real memory of you
was from when i was five or six
i’d just been to my first pirates game
and you were at the front door the next day
spying those golden bill madlock wristbands
that my old man had bought me
you asked me if you could have one
and without hesitation i gave it
even when sammy kozub’s cousin
flipped you on your back on the pavement
i never thought of taking it back
because you were defending me
and this is the first thing that i thought about
when my old man called and told me
that you were gone at only forty-one years old
suffocating on your own vomit
like some kind of rock star
i hoped whatever it was that took you wasn’t genetic
because most days i love this life too much to leave it
and i’m scared shitless of doctors and hospitals
i thought about violence and baseball and biology
on the day that you died
instead of how you simply weren’t here anymore
but time has been cruel to us both
family, i mean what can you say?
in some lines blood just doesn’t run thicker than water
it trickles from a rusty pipe
and we never really knew each other
so i probably have no business trying to eulogize you
especially in something as cheap as a poem
because you could’ve been any face on the street to me
you virtual stranger
but maybe there would’ve been something in the eyes
that would’ve caught us both
some resemblance or the mention of an old baseball hero
kid stuff to spark some kind of reminiscence
but that chance has passed us by, cousin
we’re distant stars burning out
and now we’ll just have to wait for something else
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