…for Chris
I see you on the dock, removing your helmet, fingers soft on the
closure beneath
your chin, bike leaning on hip, close, like a lover waiting for the
return
of your attention, like a dog, collared, loyal, yours. It is metal, wheels,
pedals, and motion
potential, like your lips, pursed in concentration, a laugh behind your
teeth, lost.
I cannot get from there, from your hands so careful, placing the
helmet
on the boards, the bicycle almost alive beside you, the tires rubber
prayers, begging,
take another ride, put the helmet back on, straddle the seat. Ride
away. I cannot
get from there to your whole body submerged, fingers floating or
fighting. I cannot see
you beneath your boat, dark blue wet womb. If I imagine you there
you are breathing
brushstrokes of seaweed and sketching lichen on the briny hull, self
portrait
in saltwater. I see you on the dock, hit rewind, watch bike wheels
reverse until
we are only 15. I set you in a student desk in a trailer at our high
school. I put music
in your hands and sarcastic kindness in your mouth. The laugh slips
soft from behind
your teeth, lips wide, grin I will not forget, refuse to let dissolve in
ocean water. I cannot
trap you in the hours between your fingers on the helmet clasp and
your body
heavy in a diver’s arms. Grief wants to lock you in that dying, turn the
missing
minutes to eternity, but I say no. If you have to be anywhere forever
inside
of memory, I choose Algebra, ninth grade, your friendship the only
equation worth
solving in that room, the hour daily when we spoke in music
and math it would take me years to understand.
