Originally published, in slightly different form, in The Coil, February 2018.
Once
I saw a man,
whose brother
had been murdered,
sidearm a coin
into a fountain,
and for years
I puzzled
over what this meant.
In the years
that followed
was the cheap prattle
of weather speculations
and baseball scores,
while his heartbeat kept time to some
inner dirge
that held him at a remove,
and his countenance only broke open once—
as he sailed the life of his brother
on a dime
into the water.
Copyright © 2018 by Gary Beaumier.
