We Never Heal, Just Remember Less

Published in Spoon River Poetry Review.

Stretching my legs
after a walk down our old street,

my dead son’s face came to me,
the scar below

his left eyebrow, the window
of his missing two front teeth

so clear, I had to sit
for a minute, on someone else’s porch.

Four years since Riley died;
since the tsunami hit Japan—

all those children swept away.
You’d think we’d heal, yet today,

at our younger son’s game,
as Desmond raced toward home,

his father cheered, Go Riley!
We stared at one another,

seeing our first son
fall all over again—

skull of memory cracked open
against concrete.