Death On The Expressway

Death on the Expressway
(For Michael---Written by my brother, Glen, after Michael committed suicide)

Of all the black hearses cruising the cemeteries
Which one holds the fatal gun?

There you are by my mother, being washed
(or is it baptized?) in the steel tub, but which
sun sheds the dark rays that betrayed you?

A coffin floats on the ocean under the blue
Skies of Kentucky, the fishermen wave
As you raise the lid to explain the mysteries…

There was the day you saved me from drowning
As I slid oblivious into the deep water and you
Stood towering to lift me up, but where are you now?

Angels and onlookers are at the scene
Where you made your final exit
After you careened into the lightpole.

Why did you warn them away with your gun?
Why did you die under a dark Kentucky sun?

Where are the days you sent me thieving
In the drugstore for caps for our little revolvers
Or the evenings lost in dusk when we peddled
Newspapers to the whiskeyed drunks in the bars
Who tipped us mightily?

One angel remains to witness the gunplay
As the state trooper arrives, arrives, arrives…

When we shot at each other from behind
Imagined trees, boulders, saloons, you
Had all the caps, I had to pretend.

Why are you stepping out in the open
Waving your gun, pretending?

Angel: there are no caps in his little gun.
Trooper: are there caps in the gun he is waving?

Now you are walking me home from school
Because the terrifying nuns have made me
Wet my pants again, and the little girl I love
Who doesn’t know I exist, has noticed.

Now you are walking into the warning shot.
Now you are peeking out from the dark saloon.
Now you are dying under a blue Kentucky sky.

I would have gladly given you the caps
In my gun, but the angel is too busy
Calling for help, and the trooper is too shocked
As he kneels over your body to discover
You were only pretending.

Glen Woodard
January 2, 1994