Poor Mr. Gray. There’s nothing more to say.
Who will recite the monologue of your final act?
Dragged from the East River, two months gone,
they knew you only by your teeth.
On the radio that evening I heard someone
discussing your WASP heritage in the same breath
as your mother’s suicide and the devastating accident
two years ago in Ireland. It all added up, Spalding:
you were the victim of your own WASPy introversion.
Things might’ve been different if you’d just been
a little less you. Next time, see
if you can work on that, O.K.?
__________
Revised March 11. This ain’t my favoritest poem by a long shot but it’s gonna stay up, just because I don’t want to leave readers with the impression (after Tuesday’s blog) that I meant in any way to blame the victim for his suicide.