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A Poem for Nico

By Jordan Godby


"You’re carefully wrapped up

In a black shawl.

Or you were, at least,

On your Ibiza bike-ride

The day your beautifully scarved skull

Bounced off the pavement.


“I’ll be back soon.”

That’s what you told your son

Before you went out.


I just watched The Royal Tenenbaums

And when “These Days” came on

I realized that all I want

Is to meet someone that makes me hear

Sweet, finger-plucked guitars

That bounce off my ears

The way water bounces back off a lake in the heavy rain.


Your voice exists in the same spot of my brain that houses

The sensation of walking outside at 5 a.m.

Dark as midnight,

A nearly imperceptible mist

Gently massaging my face and forearms,

And dew flicking off the tips of each blade of grass I uncover in stride,

Tickling the backs of both legs.

The heavy sleep residing under each eyelid

Suggests a promise of dreams,

But I know that dreams aren’t quite this beautiful.


When I think back to the hottest day of the Spanish summer of ’88,

And how they thought you were unconscious from the heat

And not your bleeding brain,

I wonder why it is that the universe would snuff out

Something so beautiful

With such a whimper."

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