Wade
by Jerry Hamby

I cannot remember your face, just your name
and the single hour we spent together.
You were the kid who talked to me
at Sunday school, showed me the ropes,
construction paper, crayons, saved me
a chair at your table. But you left me
high and dry, killed in a car wreck
the following week, your family wiped out
on an Oklahoma highway.
My experience with death was shallow,
two dogs, a turtle, until you died.
After your funeral, my grandfather
patted my knee as I scrunched
between the bucket seats of his T-bird.
Even now, I pack memories of death
inside that car, that twilight ride.

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