This is for you because I don’t want to mourn you,

but your ghost is too alive and I am too old

for you to haunt my kitchen and make me remember

other young men, and women too, dead like that--with a bullet

or a noose, a clever pair of scissors, the diligent black

blade of a knife, soothing soft white powder,

dull pile of pills, or stinking closed garage—

I don’t want to hear the endless ringing

of the telephone or the slow answering machine: 

“I’m not here right now. Please leave a message.”

What you wanted was not too far away--

that ancient lovely melody we all know

but hear only in fragments.

I heard it in your heart that pumped out call after call

as you followed the basketball around your father’s

empty driveway, and I walked by

and I said nothing; 

you played ball and looked at me

as you turned your back, lifted your arm,

and scored a goal to impress a stranger.

Why didn’t I hum the melody I heard

and challenge you to another game?