The picture your friend posted,

a remnant of that summer,

now shows us what we’d

been seeing less of then

more and more—

you and friends in the park

holding up a friend, a light

moment, young men laughing,

summer before senior year,

even after it turned out,

your hair exhausted, sweat

gathered to dull and burden

your eyes, it now took a beat

after the whole group erupted

for you to curve up your mouth,

everyone looking forward,

camera phone to catch

for future, for survivors,

the first red flag

we missed, third party,

married couple asleep—

you’d been walking like

other late adolescents for a while,

at new distances by which we missed

what should have been alarms,

the harm yet to take place.

Thomas Allbaugh works in three genres, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He has published a chapbook of poems, The View from January, with Kelsay books, as well as a novel and a short story collection. He recently retired from teaching at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California.