For Chris

"My grandma always says you never question the man upstairs on decisions he makes, everyone makes mistakes, but I don't see how Chris was supposed to go already, especially when he was on the right path. Other than that, he's going to be missed." - Chad Ochocinco

With the mic beneath his nose,
he takes a tear-filled breath and remembers the pearls.
He remembers the shag carpet & the smell of mothballs
before Mohawks,
before name change & earned stripes,
crooked fingers & big mouths.
Before black and orange & under lights & under achievement.
Before big money and dreams and women and sweaty draft rooms
with the inhales outweighing the exhales
and women and booze and the transgressions
of the gridiron and grindstone and uncomfortable suits,
he remembers the pearls.
He remembers the Miami driveway.
The coarse crabgrass, the way she would lean over
in her lawn chair and pull him close.
Her Sunday hat was an eclipse.
She always gave him the same answer when
he asked that kind of why.

He takes a tear filled breath looks away.
The biggest, baddest, shit talkin-est,
Sunday show-boatin-est,
innovator of “the list” and anti-Lombardian flamboyance in the end zone
closes his mouth with the silence of prayer
because he is still asking that kind of why.