Naomi Stenberg
Our Boy
Bart came over in the rain in pointy black-leather shoes and an old overcoat, his blonde hair unwashed and curling like something from under the sea. He paused in the doorway like a specter, like a vampire who needed an invitation. We had to love him. Love the storm in him. Rain on his face, mingled with dirt, and a week of stubble. Wild man. Storm man. We had to let him in but hesitated because of what he carried.
“You wanna see Michael?” he asked, his voice way too loud, amped from caffeine and coke. “He’s amazing.” He held the urn up like a trophy he’d just won. “Wanna see him?”
Our friend opened the urn before we could answer. Fistful of bone in his hand. “See, you can still see bits of him, bits of Michael. Wanna hold him?”
We participated like it was a science experiment. Our first ash. Both of us, mouths open, held out a cupped hand.
“Taste it,” he said. “I did.”
It could have been any night. Rain on the roof. Bart still in his overcoat, shoes muddy. But we were eating ash. Grit of the man, Bart’s lover, Marjorie’s best friend, who had been alive a week before. Grit of the man, the sweet, tyrannical mystic who attached crystals to his kite strings to make his own stars. Grit of the man who had called in November at 3:00 in the morning and sang, I’ll be Home for Christmas and cried because he would not.
Bone in our mouths and we swallowed and then we were all grinning like it was a party. We were suddenly awash in an amazing festive weirdness. Somehow he had come back to us, our boy. He was under our tongues and death could not have him.
Naomi Stenberg (she/her) is queer, nuerodivergent and thriving in Seattle. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Does It Have Pockets, Sky Island Journal, Soul Poetry, Knee Brace Press, the anthology, Teacakes and Tarot, and elsewhere. In her spare time, Naomi sings protest songs with an activist group called The Raging Grannies, does improv, and plays apartment fetch with her dog.
