Half Done

Half Done

(Love each other in a way that makes you feel close like brothers and sisters. And give each other more honor than you give yourself.” Romans 12:10)

Our house was home-made décor, half done projects
on the walls, a green bean bag and dentist’s chair
on the living room floor.

It was mostly home, though the horticulture lacked
for purpose or design; the landscaper sneezed too readily
once hay fever season began and the weeds had a heyday
from fence to falling fence.

Sun tea was always brewing atop the flat verandah roof,
mom sunbathed will past afternoon and 45,
the black lab found the shade only after nuzzling each
visitor to their knees.

We liked the summer East Bay and found new ways to
play the same games, old ways to ask the same girls
for dates we were certain would turn us down. We lived
in town
and drove an hour to spend the day at Briones. (I’ve
written about it before. See my anthology, published after
my demise, and filed somewhere between Berkeley skies
and Jesus’ people meeting at Jacob’s Well for burgers and fries.)

Our house was occasional Goodwill influenced, though
we shopped mostly for clothing at St. Vincent de Paul.
I found platform shoes and denim blues, along with
paisley flannel shirts and macramé beads that looked mostly
like watermelon seeds.

I share all of this to say that, of all the ones I’ve known and met,
I miss you the most; the one who sat with me when the world
had ended. I miss old VWs and pool parties, talking about nothing
as if we were solving the world. I miss you, (never let me
regret
having felt it this well without telling you about it.) I miss
so many conversations that still have commas, and never
ended until

The words left unspoken fell upon the backyard pasture,
mixed with the lawn gone to seed and settled somewhere close to
or north of Petaluma.