PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I guess you could say we were like brothers…developing a strong relationship built on mutual enjoyment of the world we made our own, and the connection through words that poets share. Yes, that’s right! Kevin and I were poets. Deep, thought provoking poetry. The kind that you had to think about for a minute to understand what they were really saying. It’s just the way we thought at the time in our lives.



I’ll never forget that Summer of 1982. We were working the 1st shift in the Shipping/Receiving Department of a Name Brand Clothing store. Making barely enough money to pay the few bills that we had and enjoy the costs of having fun, it was alright, and we spent nearly every night in ritualistic camaraderie hoisting cheap beer, playing good music, chasing girls and writing poetry, after hours in the parking lot of our workplace, after waiting for Kevin’s younger brother, Patrick, to get off of his 2nd shift at the same store. Then for hours, in the drone of a street light lined parking lot, next to a heavily traveled highway, we laughed and carried on.



Kevin and I had some deep conversations while we waited. Poets have a tendency to look a little deeper than the surface…it inspires us to write the same way…and Kevin and I had much to say. I will never forget the night Kevin told me about the drowning death of his younger sister, Rachel. He stared ahead out the window in the front seat of my Chevy Nova SS. Quietly, he recanted the details of a family outing that ended in tragedy on the banks of the Missouri River. “She was just out of my reach Steve and I couldn’t reach her,” he spoke, damning himself for being too young to weather a mightier current. Fact is no one could have saved her. She toppled into the water and the current swept her away, and what seemed like a few feet to a young boy willing to claim responsibility for her death…was actually unreachable. Kevin panned toward me as he mumbled softly beneath the quietude of that moment, seeing tears streaming down my face, I nodded quietly to him, giving him the unspoken assurance that things were gonna be alright. We understood each other like that.



Years passed. Kevin and I went our separate ways, each going to school in different directions, Kevin to the West Coast and me to the Midwest. We tried to stay in touch, but, got mired in the detail of ordinary and lost track of each other. Still, on occasion, I thought about him and those crazy days of summer, as I often got lost in the whispers of a faraway muse. The last time I saw Kevin was at my daughter’s funeral. She was our first and died suddenly the day after her due date. No explanation, no medical reason was ever defined…it just wasn’t meant to be. It just didn’t feel like that. I felt her move, she knew and responded to my voice, and, now, I was heartbroken after having endured the most tragic experience of my life. As I prepared myself to carry her tiny casket to her final resting place at the graveside service, I quietly panned the crowd of family and friends who were there in support and honor. Tears began streaming down my face again, as I looked to the back of the crowd and saw Kevin. He made eye contact and nodded to me, his face filled with tears, giving me the unspoken assurance that things were gonna be alright.



We understood each other like that.