By One’s Own Hand

for Sundin Richards

We never met. I knew you only through the poems

that erupted from you like lightning from the muzzle

of a gun or that crackled and sizzled like smack when

it’s smoked. Now all that survives of you are disparate

shadows, shimmering echoes. Someone who knew you

better than me should have noticed you walking away,

collar turned up; should have stopped you before you

disappeared down a dark narrow street of dive bars

and drug houses and single room occupancy hotels.

Today would have been your forty-eighth birthday,

and Facebook, unaware  you’re dead, reminded me

to let you know I’m thinking about you. Sundin, I am.