Long Gone Brother

for Pete Graff

despite all the build up
it's a dead stop
flip back and erase
tape end just spool out
the flick click click click
rotating around
drain dervish down

so I reach for a device
an acceptable channel
impersonal yet personal
a text or a voicemail

before I can call
John calls and tells me
Big Pete is gone now

looking down
from my window
the fruitless tree
plum purple and brown
just before twilight
thinking cherry blossom
cherry blossom

no need for prosody
before he could get back
his body was just too sick
to cover the distance

now he's out there ahead of us
his husk freshly jettisoned
still a ways north of the Pinnacles
heading down toward Soledad
just as he would have preferred

a man filled with fight
humor and a bald-faced
hatred for bullshit
my friend Pete is gone