Alumni Go Home

I earned a diploma 
but the way the smooth and winding path 
leads to the beach we visited 
many nights in the 90s 
is no less long and confusing today.

Two friends and I went back 
thinking the stuff of blues. 
Friend 1 was a father of two 
who knew the time was short 
and kept pushing hard 
toward death and morality. 
Friend 2 was a single State employee 
who traveled the world chasing revolution  
and leftist European thought. 
Next month he would meet his ex in India  
and be locked inside a mental institution.

I won't punish myself.  
My weaknesses were real
and they knew them. 
As Lucille Clifton put it 
You are Sir Geoffrey Faintheart are you? 
Her colleague went so far 
as to throw my writings in the trash. 
Later, it was plagiarism.  
Vicious, misogynistic, inaccurate, white. 
Criticism is neverending, justifiably so
we come to believe after a lifetime of beatdowns.

Life it is proceeding.
You are a wonderful man, but…but. 
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None happier than another 
(which may be appropriate for good friendships) 
as we headed down that path 
where the blue-tailed skink 
patrols white replications of colony 
I realized the bend in the river 
before it came. Covered in marsh water 
erosion and flies— 
the beach on which we used to sit. 
A jet ski on the river. Clouds of gnats. 

So we moved on to a more familiar place along the hidden trail.
The grave of dead Friend 3.

Honestly assessing his death 
regretting in the headstones by the river with apricot skies.

I kept growing more enamored of the dragonflies.