Rita Malenczyk
Six Years After Your Suicide
You go everywhere on people's arms,
One version of you a cross, another
your death date etched in Roman numerals
where the muscles meet the shoulders
of three best friends. When they stand side by side
it makes the full date, one number on each:
day, month, year. Those are in black.
Mine is on the part of the arm where they draw blood:
a yellow rose, orange at the tips,
black and green leaves
with your first initial somewhere in there.
On your dad's shoulder sits your name,
crossed by hockey sticks.
On one brother's wrist the number of your jersey
and the clock time when you scored the winning goal;
on the other's chest a deer,
shot through with flowers, vines, branches,
as if it remembers where all things go.
Rita Malenczyk is a writer, painter, and occasional printmaker living and working in eastern Connecticut. Her essays and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Under the Gum Tree, Sugar House Review, JMWW, HeartWood, Brevity Blog, and elsewhere. She is professor emerita of English at Eastern Connecticut State University.
