Friday afternoon
lights fall to meet autumn nights
but you are not here

knowing, my heart aches
secrecy’s not my style
but brutal truth hurts

i’d take back the words
but they’re lost in confession
forgiven, lost, here

just as you should be
beside me with hugs in hand
building my haiku

instead she shows me
engraved Jack Daniels bottle
twenty-one years out

i tell her i’ll cry
and write her a poem later
about that bottle

never in his mouth
infancy or twenty-one
may he rest in peace

you and i would cry
after she left us drinking
but you’re not here, friend

the way the world works
i won’t have you beside me
twenty-one years out