Long Way from Long Island
[Jack “Bogey” Butterfield
9 December 1929
to 10 March 2010]

hijack a poem for Jack
to get to where his journey ends

who is of this world
he was of this world and he wasn't
he was beautiful

I'll miss him
will be joining him and mom and all the others
who used to sit around the dinner table
and dine on mutton and macaroni
potato salad, fish heads, coleslaw

when we all get to heaven, we will sit down again

too many missing from the dinner table
down here: more up there

they must be talkin', laffin already
having a reunion

his mother, Aunt Francis, up there already
meeting her tonight

her brother, his Uncle Obie, stories to tell
“How are my children getting along?”

“Well,” he'll say, laffin like he always did
mouth full of white teeth

“They are not as young as they were
“When you bid them farewell in 2003

“They'll be joining us too before too long,”
he'll tell Uncle Obie

what will he ask mom to fix him, I wonder
okra soup in a big pot, with Long Island mutton

several loaves of her home made bread
pitcher a switcher, limes off a tree in the yard
of their mansion in heaven

modest would do, a cottage would do
just to be able to leave the doors open

the windows open, sticks to push them out
let the breeze blow in

like life was once on earth, on Long Island


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
10:14 p.m. 10.03.10