Ray, September 1983

There is a picture of him at my parents’ backyard
shotgun wedding saluting the camera with a can
of Stroh’s beer and a Camel between his fingers

the white carnation in his lapel matches the paper
streamers decorating the above ground pool and
he is happy as any Slovak can be, half-smiling

Behind him the tiki lights on the toolshed bar
burn through early evening mill sulfur haze
like horrible and doomed constellations.