An Editorial

An Editorial
In memory of Jim Heil

We’d like to think it was a spotted gull
Some grace of light that tricked the water green
That made you turn and paddle toward the moon,
Away from afternoon matinees
And the newsroom, deadlines and bylines
And lame editorials -- you spat them out
like sawdust, sought the woods
And Michigan.

A snowy owl lifts her wings; racoons rut
For garbage. At your old place we pick
Our objects. Stones from
Superior, that bowl
Filled with acorns, a button-down
Still smelling of your sweat, those
Nights, that hospital bed, the countdown
To last breaths:

We make ourselves at home:
There's kindling in the grate
good dry wood. The beat cop
Makes fire and we sit, hands cupped
Round mugs, hands fitted
On bony knees like caps.

You should have seen yourself,
Lord Jim,
Sunken. Wrinkled skin-
Bone cold
What did you expect,
Marathoner who lived
On carrot sticks? A drowned bird
Who'd been in the lake too long.

I got the call.
November surf, a kayak
Spit from a Great Lake,
A turn, adrift
This life, a lone
Gray wave.

By Reka Jellema
Copyright
August 2015