ICHTHYOLOGIST LOST | Sue Kenney
For Thomas M.
I remember your teeth, white and straight and large
your thick eyeglasses and your towering tallness.
Your unruly red hair, a stray curl
unfurling as you used your ruler to make
every line perfectly straight.
I remember your notepads filled with detailed sketches,
all of them fish.
You carried your marbled Barclay tomes under your
arm and pushed the bridge of your eyeglass frames up with your
middle finger when you spoke.
Your skin was white, pale as milk,
And your cheeks flushed pink like an old fisherman’s
when the nuns called on you.
But you were no fisherman.
Your eyebrows auburn, arched in intelligent,
interested, incessant, inquisitive innocence.
We went to different high schools you and I,
no reason to stay in touch.
Years later, when they told me what had become of you
at only sixteen,
how your pallid body
still topped with a shock of red,
was found silent and still
at the end of a rope,
I felt the line snap between us,
the pang of loss, never really knowing
what caves and caverns you dwelt in.
Sue Kenney has been teaching for over 20 years, first at the college level at William Paterson University, and for the past 17 years at Immaculate Heart Academy. Kenney's doctorate is in interdisciplinary humanities, and she earned her CPA in Narrative Medicine from Columbia in 2021. In addition to teaching English and Social Studies, she is happily in her second year of teaching Narrative Medicine to high school students.