——for Toby (1959–2005)
I took his handwritten note and walked toward
Simpson’s Supermarket on Covert Ave.
I handed the cashier Toby’s note & cash.
The cashier read it and then handed me,
a ten-year-old boy, a pack of smokes.
The cigarettes’ name brand escapes me
like the legion of demons escaped
from the man who lived in the tombs
in the region of the Gerasenes with Christ’s permission.
Toby, whose real name was Wendell, is now long dead,
like the herd of two thousand pigs
that, right after they got possessed by Legion,
rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
Steve Castro’s debut poetry collection, Blue Whale Phenomena, appeared in 2019 (Otis College of Art and Design). Born in Costa Rica, he has poetry forthcoming in Bayou.
Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash
