The Maynard
Spring 2018

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Six Thousand Dollars

And they, since they / Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

— Robert Frost

Kevin’s neighbors heard a loud pop.
Just another New Year’s Eve firework.
I got the texted photo of Kevin’s porch
crossed in caution tape
followed by “I think I’m going to be sick.”

It would take 3 years for the killer
to be found in Texas. Some guy
who owed Kevin a few grand in cocaine debt
shot him instead of paying.

My thumbs pirouetted above the keypad.
“No fucking way,” I typed. “Kevin knew
we loved him.” But I was lying,
of course I couldn’t know that.
I think that’s why I called his mother
in New Jersey the next morning. As she
bawled, I held the phone out at arm’s length.

Kevin had asked me if I wanted to spend
that New Year’s Eve together. The one where police
found his body face down
in his boxers, an exit wound beneath his forehead.

I told him, I already had plans.

When I think of Kevin, freebasing
Percocet, pills melting into sludge,
white smoke slithering into a hollow
pen, his cough like screeching tires,

I remember he died before his mother saw
what he had become. At his funeral, I hugged
his mother, she whispered, “Don’t be a stranger.”