I Knew I'D Use It Someday Poem by Francie Lynch

The young who wizen
Leave me grieving until my breathing stops.
For many years I wallowed
With old photos.
There's one of Jimmy in a familiar leg cast,
Holding court with a circle of friends
In the damp cement cellar.
No more lines to flip,
No visages to make us laugh.
I used to hear his favourite tunes
Coming from his room.
Such a great loss,
A terrible trouble.
At sixteen we knew he was
A young Methuselah:
Green on the vine,
Unaged wine, a bitter pill.

Dying, dying, dying.

To love him was to leave him
In his last dark hours.
No brother could do more.
I feel his soft parting touch on my hand
After trips and years and careers.
Jimmy was bold, and shy of seventeen.
He wrote, and I saved it, unexpectedly:
“Peacocks dabbling through the wind
Were the spectrum of her eyes.”
I knew I'd use it someday.