Long Way Down — I Won’t Pretend that Shawn

I WON’T PRETEND THAT SHAWN

was the kind of guy who was home by curfew.

The kind of guy

who called and checked in

about where he was,

who he was with, what he was doing.

He wasn’t.

Not after eighteen,

which was when our mother

took her hands off him, pressed them together, and

began to pray

that he wouldn’t go to jail that he wouldn’t get Leticia pregnant

that he wouldn’t die.