Elegy for Bud
Bud be sixty on the
sixth, and it was beyond me
how he fell but now with
his blue boat shoes on,
only then would he tell
that man cannot translate
trauma.
Tall and stiff like Marlboros
and sharp like corner store vodka,
Bud be catching character
in the Sunday crosswords.
He’d bum a bogey with Boo and
talk late into the night on what is
and ain’t right.
Had Bud been here,
Bud be sixty.
He’d make sense of the overcast sky
on the day he died,
and the plum color of his
boiling cheeks.
by Max Eyes
from The Sandy River Review, Spring 2013
.