Beautiful Boy

This poem is dedicated to my sweet cousin James, who passed away in 2022. I still miss him dearly, and think about him nearly every day. Writing this was an attempt to illustrate the fond flashes of memory that haunt me, and to remember the gentle soul that left us far too soon. Grief plagues everyone differently; the forlorn objects left behind are both a comfort and a cruel reminder of a marked absence. 

‘beautiful boy’

in memory of James

we buried you on the beach, arms like soft wires in the sand:

i could see every tooth in your laughing mouth and the shape of your skull,

under cropped hair. that day you were a still specimen,

like the kind you would dissect under sharp lights,

a decade heavier. the years become slick stones against the current,

and your hardware fizzles and fractures: the white-gloved hands pressing indents

into your cold tissue look identical to your gentle hold on the test tubes.

when we lower you into the december earth, i see your sun-loved limbs

stretched under sand, through filmy memory, and the gap you left behind.

let me preserve you in a glass case, an exhibit that strangers can touch,

small remnants from a child’s mind – a crumbling castle,

a butterfly’s broken wing, your wedding ring, waiting for solace.

twenty-six is the number that comes knocking,

but nobody ever answers. i resuscitate you in deathless object:

a poor imitation, my new baptism.

beautiful boy, my mouth still forms your name, tasting a shrine.

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Edited by Roxy-Moon Dahal Hodson