The Lost Son

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He was a  footnote in the stories, mentioned 

as if such things were as common for the times,

as moonshine, fighting, or chewing tobacco.

His laugh was remembered, "His little laugh."

otherwise, a space in family portraits,

a pause in my grandfather’s speech,

“Got my two girls and, well, … I had a boy...”

I heard it as a flat and bloodless story,

sepia toned and reconciled by distance,

until  years later, Grandfather gone,

 my Mother talked history over photos,

her parents, how their marriage splintered,

and everything changed.  His drinking,

swept through everything, a river 

the dam had let go. “After Timmy?”

I asked, finally piecing together,

the sweetly broken way he passed his life,

and the pause, that never lost its place.

                                

                                                  -Brent Allard