Remembering Eston

Cleaning out the garage,
we found an ancient typewriter,
the one my father found at a garage sale
and then gave our girls for Christmas.
Prying apart its frayed and fabric-covered case, we found,
still wrapped around its roller,
the one letter my 9 year old had typed,
its faded words a slash across the page:
"Dear Eston, I am sorry that your sick"
and then it all comes back,
the sly and secret glances as we sat
and listened to the futile machinations of our boss;
the eyerolls and the gestures,
and that moment, when I helped create your catalog,
and you looked up and said,
"You know I'm gay, right?"
I replied, "You know I'm married,"
and we grinned; that sense of connection
you can feel with another was so strong,
despite the fact that you were black and I was white,
that you smoked and drank while I abstained,
that you were gay and I was straight,
that you were male, a priest, and single,
while I was just a woman with a job,
a husband, and 2 kids.

We decided we were sisters,
so when you dropped the phone
and it clattered to the floor
in the middle of our conversation
as you collapsed and the medics
had to break down the door
and the blood, oh the blood,
and we discovered that your brain had been invaded
I could only hurt,
and sit there in that awkward chair
(there's always one or two in hospital rooms)
typing on my laptop as your light dimmed, and
exchanging anxious glances with your ex,
who came to care for you in your last days.

As your words grew rare, and rarer still,
fading into the sheets,
I learned you'd been abusive,
and that he'd loved you anyway
(perhaps because? who knows)
and that confession that you made
holding our white hands in your brown,
honored the priestly in us both.
We watched your skin grow dry and gray,
stretched tight across your broken skull,
and finally, bereft of language,
still you gripped our fingers:
and just before I had to leave
a tear, a single tear, slid down your cheek
to let us know you were still there,
behind the skin, below the thin white sheets,
below the collar that you could no longer wear,
we still were sisters,
and when you died I cried.