Fool's Therapy

for Rob and other dead "Bees"


Robert Peace is dead. Those words, writing them,
should assuage something. They do not—
they say nothing of his gruff brilliance, nor lure
my mind to parse the syntax of his passing.

I still envy the ease with which Peace untangled
derivatives—he helped me feel the relief
of not being the smartest head in the classroom
(a grace that serves any fool well in later life).

Still, Peace could also say the droll things
that needed saying, as he did during religion class
—his eyes absent, off reading through the window
what awaited us beyond senior year, beyond Newark.

He opined, "Beyoncé is so fine I'd drink her bath water."
His hyperbole turned my stomach—recalling too well
what I'd learned of the body and what it secretes,
knowing too little of lust. What was it then

Peace was teaching me? My mind too busy
mulling what Father Matthew meant by saying
"Sex without love is no more than masturbation."
(He meant if you seek pleasure, seek pleasure,

not acts of love.) I inflate my basketball
the day after I learn Peace has been shot, has died.
I walk onto a giving plane of hardwood
and flick three-pointers at the hoop—not in love

with the world, just wanting it to grant me
simple pleasure, the release of releasing
the ball from my fingertips. No teenager,
my knees now burn with each leap and drift,

but at least I can predict what follows here.
Peace is dead. I please myself with shooting jumpers.
Sneaker-squeak, tap of landing, swish of contact—
the sequence a sonic salve. I don't love the world

in this moment. I do as Father Matthew taught us.






From Honest Engine (University of Georgia Press, 2015). All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of the author.