To Adam

I owe it to myself

and to you, I guess, in a far more impermanent form than I

to rejoice your life where death now deputizes

remembering a cascading smile and an unapologetic laugh,

an unapologetic look, warmth in a friendly embrace, that welcomed my adolescence.

your form so honest and genuine, accepting of all things weary, tattered, perfect and imperfect, dismantled by the hand of man

no longer here

and where am I to you?