in memoriam - phillip hughes

it has been two years.already.
not that i have thought of you
in these two years.
or that i knew of you
before that.
it was a fleeting rendezvous
with the idea of you.
(as it is with all rendezvous)

you were born five long years
after i was,and the script
placed your exit
three days before
your twenty sixth birthday.

(i remember feeling then
that my twenty sixth
was the year of fatalities
of another kind
from which i haven’t since recovered.)

I don’t know your story.
(except what they built
over twitter and other eulogies)
does it matter?
you were there. and then you weren’t.

two years later
there is a small report 
in an online newspaper
on the other side of the world
that has found time and space
to spare for you.

And i remember,
i had cried then. at my workplace.
stolen away from sympathetic voices
that discussed you over coffee.
what a tragedy, they had said,
with the customary sighs
before moving on
to the gorgeous earrings
of one of the mourners.
at home i had kept replaying
the scene. on youtube
and in my head.
trying to make sense
of this script that was giving me
more screen time.

two years. to the day.
loss finds me again
(but it is not yours, chimes an afterthought)
and staring at that news report
i am not sure what to do.
i look at your picture - twenty six
would have suited you.
perhaps i should look up
what i was like
at twenty eight.

(whirring in the background - the playwright must have had a plan.)