For Gracie, who the genes took…
You never saw the thirteenth summer through- before the genes claimed you.
You always were - the sallow one, knuckle- kneed, paper thin, but - the lights in your jaundiced eyes shone: through pain and fear, and hope and tears.
The strength in your voice never dimmed, never waned, until the genes - like a belligerent marabout’s curse - turned you, to a mound of red- dead earth
You never saw the thirteenth summer through- but like a wound left raw We remember.