I remember haunted half-pained foolish
laughter breaking loose of him on the island
the coal barge rumbling by sweeping our tent
with a cold and shocking light that drove him
out into the wet sand where he stood a raving
antic figure half-enjoying how utterly fucked

up he still was on the pills weed whatever
else might feed a hungry seventeen years
harrying a cornfield town where dogs fell
asleep behind the church — when the call
came this morning thirty years onward
I already knew what & only wondered

how?

and why now?