Poem

One pondered
How
We were all there
Same time
Same circumstance.

And despite Kevin Costner
At my side
How you could be there
With your baseball cap
Bedazzled with
The Seeing Eye

And yet not know
How
Your lesbian khaki shorts
Could invade our space
Even after we
Gave you the pink lighter
(Don't tell his mother)
To smoke a bad joint.

Perhaps we must
And did
Judge you
Although our shorts
Were just the same.

Poem

I told you this, brother
And it will always be true.
I will never know what you
Would have become.

If your hair would have
Continued to tangle
Into unmanageable curls
After your voice stopped breaking.

Or if you would have
Scored the touchdown
That would have made
Our father's heart soar.

Or if, on some imaginary day
At my wedding, you would have
Cracked a bawdy joke
And brought the house down
With your blue eyes.

In my dreams, you occasionally show up
With different faces
And you tell me some wisdom
From beyond, that I always lose
Upon waking.

I told you this, but I know
This part to be true.
I have nothing but this tiny flower
From a Pennsylvania summer,
For a Pennsylvania grave.

I miss you.

-EEG

Poem

I did not agree
With his choice of eulogy,
Even though he was a priest
And much more experienced
In that delivery.

I did not want to be reminded
That our cousin was a sinner
While his children ran
Unknowingly around the pews
Blissful, unwavering.

I did not want to be told
That people who were good
Were, in fact, not.
Nor that life is unfair
Because we sin.

I knew the difference,
I could see it gleaming off
The sheen of his wife's
Chestnut curls
As she bowed her head and took this.

I wanted to stand up and say
Life is unfair because
We are not immortal
And to have happiness
We must allow things to change
And with that change comes loss.
This is what was right.

I wanted to say it, but then,
One of the children laughed
And that laughter
Drowned out his words
Because we all joined in.

-EEG

Poem

It has been brought
To my attention
That perhaps I am
Writing too much
Poetry lately.

I will not say
Who made this cruel observation.
Or maybe I will.
It was me.
I cannot bear
The sunshine today.

-EEG

Poem

That night
We were standing
Under the streetlight
When he said

You know,
Maybe the edges of
This halo
Mark the end of the world
And if we leave it
We will step
Into an abyss.

And I said
That is
The most ridiculous
Thing I ever heard

Even though
I knew that
It was not.

-EEG

Poem

I did not regret that July,
Although there was a grief here then
That held its spell in the form
Of a shaggy haired prince
And the disasters he left
In his wake.

That summer
It would not rain.
The clouds were distant
And stingy.

Perhaps the ground
Was calling for tears.
Perhaps that explained it.

I did not regret that July
Even after I was alone.
Because I know that the ground
Needed what was mine.
And I freely gave.
Knowing then,
Later,
The ground would give back.

-EEG

Poem

When the trees grow so
You can no longer fight them
And they push their way
Into your window frame
Making new shadows
Where familiar patterns had
Once reserved their spots.

Remember
To welcome them.
Study the new lessons
In their shade.

-EEG