You could call it a noose.
Or an abacus, restrung, a rosary
circumscribing a pulse—my wrist (not his,
not slashed, this time). I want numbers:
twelve beads, one for each hour. No,

don’t ask the time of death. Was it
starless—my nephew pacing the bridge,
the insidious voice of rapids, wave after wave,
and later his sodden husk, drifting
ashore? No one talks about

undertow of the soul, the failure
to save—thrice: a nephew, an uncle,
my former student. And I’m back
mouthing words, over
the truest bead: I wasn’t enough.

You could tell me to look back, nothing
to erase the vision, a trio of towheaded boys
with dazzler grins, happy-go-lucky
as tumbleweeds. Mine, for a time,
like the beads, one following another.

How does one come clean,
not saying the one thing, the bead
a small world forever
crossing your scarred palm,
all our names already there.