Poetry Challenge 13

For today's prompt, write a poem that remembers an old relationship. This relationship does not have to be romantic. It could be a departed (or estranged) family member, old friend, former teacher, or even just someone you briefly encountered. And the relationship may have even been one-sided or seemingly insignificant to the other person. So let's all dig deep into our memory banks and see what we can draw out today.

John

You washed out of the sea like a god
you did
I rubbed my eyes and you were there
strong and dripping, salty, glistening

and we talked as easily as if you'd started a sentence
before your swim and finished it
coming up to me

And in the evening you came over
in your white pilot's pants
funny and gorgeous. My word
and the air between us
shifted with the fireflies

and we sat by the pool
where my life later would end
and no one came to build a fire and we went in
and years went on

and you moved to Africa
and we met once in Italy
where I watched you walk across the piazza
like no one has ever walked before or since
silent - like your feet weren't on the ground

your walk
truly like you were walking on water
no one has such grace - easy, beautiful you
we smelled things in the apothecary
touched oil to our pulse
passed the honey and the cream

this long before the pool turned dark
this long before the car wreck
shattered your skull like a dove's egg

you could no longer fly
you could no longer say yes or no or love or water
or pool or see or sea and years went by
your body like on fire you said
later, when you had learned, from vowels to speak again
years we never saw coming
and the pool swallowed up my first life
- except my head so it wouldn't forget

I could have loved you. I did.
I could have lived in Africa next to your burning body.
They say a rogue wave got you.
I wonder.
If the pain was too much, it was.

But in the myth, the water took you
as it brought you. Another beautiful creature.
Another precious friend who could not breath water.
But tried and in trying, said, not help
but goodbye.
Too soon.

It is too late to start a fire and have you stay all night.

But I will light a fire
and hope you stay all night
Stay all night, or, silent, walk above me,
between the stars, in no hurry,
not touching the ground.
A shooting star is a firefly you show me
when we are still young and beautiful
and anything can happen.