The photograph I have of him
shows a dart board looming in the background,
his head posed dead center, halo'd.

I remember posing him
that way, joking around. He is grinning,
and the rictus is very much like

a man in tears. And well he might
weep, condemned to death at 26,
then waiting for it. Seven years, waiting.

I write these words on a fine
Saturday morning, the day after
the funeral. I write them, thinking:

must meet Robbie at noon.
Thinking: well might I grin and weep
both at once, if all my days were posed

that way. What would my friends
see in their photos of me? (If
they keep any.) I'm running late,

but lingering at my warm desk,
noticing: dust-storm in a sunbeam,
the crazy tick of a fly at the window.