Miguel, 1998
As the cherry blossoms were blooming you told me about the school shooting,

it was, as you put it
a couple of years after you and your brothers graduated

but still

it happened, the boy,
freshmen to your senior, killed
2

injured 25

and your mother, fist over mouth
crying on the landline, by now,
all three boys in college

but still,

once, back then,
you were a democrat
in a purple tie, gifted over
Christmas, and the same
blue coat

worn for more
than a decade

in every photograph,

but still,

you were standing sideways,
smile wide, looking out at something
and now

I stare, tuck my hair behind my
ear, sink my hands into the back of your shirt,

recalling a fear that is not my own,

waxing over snapshot memories; the car,
an ice rink in Oregon perpetually stuck
in 1998, despite the drought, and your
hand clamped around my ancle—

there is a Wikipedia article
about the shooting, you can
google it, but your name is not there,

standing, slightly bent
in the archway, running
through the grey rain
toward the car,

the sudden noises
don't startle you.