What is there to do but whisper your name,

for to say it loud is like asking the Devil

to sit down with me and sup on tea and dine

on roasted flesh

of fatted calf and potatoes,

empty but for their skins

blighted by your ignorance.

 

I find I care not where you are

and yet out of the corner of my eye

I see your leftover remains

and I know you will be forever close by

despite my best efforts to ignore you now,

for the damage you have wrought

is still but innocence in young eager eyes.

 

I have removed your photograph,

the black and white one of us together,

from the place I pinned it in

and now it is in hiding,

much like you,

and yet I cannot undo my memories

of the traits we share, the character we once shared.

 

If you come back, not when, I’m not sure

I can face what you did,

I cannot look in you in the grainy eye

and take back my thoughts

of how you punished them;

for by doing so I condone not condemn

and would have to offer you absolution

to go with the side order of fatted calf meat

I have placed everyday on your plate.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015