Jennifer is the love of my life, the glue that holds all my toothpicks together, my bestest friend in the world, my green velvet beetle bird, my chipmunk zoo, my oh, my mine and more, always and all ways more.
Michael is a rock dropped in a lake whose ripples touch the lives of more people than he can know. Think saki, bocci, hand-stitched books, telling the first story so others tell theirs, and "always ask for more poems."
Jules was my grandfather, never sick a day until cancer killed him in weeks. I joked at his sudden thinness, his pained smile crushed me. Decades later my dad said he'd loved to laugh and I'd provided his last one.
Chris was steaming past me and I said, "Hey, what's the rush." He said, "Oh, someone broke a urinal upstairs." I said, "Wow, how do you break a urinal." He shook his head in resignation and said, "With a sledgehammer."
Kathy was the second prettiest girl in junior high, if you looked past braces and the temporarily out-of-proportion lines of her growth-spurting bones, which most people couldn't. She seemed to fit every group by relying on none.
Dawn is the quiet one who wonders if poetry really runs through her. Her hope that it does is strong enough to keep her writing, coming to readings, and standing at the microphone to put it out there. Poetry wins.
Jeff is the kind of guy who'll do a first-rate job during the four weeks after the two weeks he thought the job would take when he quoted it, and not even think to try and renegotiate the price.
Ben was my highschool girlfriend's father. We were all going out together, the boys were sitting, waiting. The ladies appeared, I began to stand. He stopped me and said, "Don't ever get off the couch until they're in the car."
Mike told me he was from IllinoiS, and pronounced the final s. I told him nobody was from IllinoiS, to be FROM you were from Illinois with a silent s. Clue number one I was dealing with a chronic liar.
Brian was the blonde haired, freckled kid who lived in a stuccoed house that did to my elbow what a grater does to cheese as I was riding by on my bike. He taught me how to flip my eyelids.
Harley always seemed to me like the perfect gentleman. Unflappable, impeccably dressed, married to a woman who was more like Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis than anyone I ever knew, he was the quiet one of the brothers, and taught me graciousness.