if you believe in things like time in poetry

My cousin Alan was eighteen when he died
when he was murdered and
I was twelve years old.
I guess that I am thirty-six now
if you believe in things like time.

If you believe in things like time
I’ve had twenty-four years now
to think about him
he was like my older brother
I’ve had twenty-four years to
think about it in every configuration
I’ve written about it ten thousand different ways
we’ve put War and Peace to shame together
his memory and I
if you believe in things like time.

Twenty-four years to think about every angle
about how the gun was so easy to get
about how his killer should’ve been already institutionalized
how the cops were idiots in the aftermath
how the priests were indifferent, all of that
two-thirds of my life in that raging river
all those things I could tell you but
there’s one thing I’d never considered.

If we got him back now
alive and unaged back to that day
he would mistake me for his uncle
mistake for my father.

Alan would remember me
as a gangly awkward pre-teen
now I’m six-foot-five
with my father’s beard but lighter
still,
if he came back as he was back then
he wouldn’t even know me for who I am.

He’d think I was my father,
if you believe in things like time.
If you believe in things like time
but I don’t know if I do.
Do you?