Crossing the River Styx

Can I talk to you for a minute?

My student asks standing still as a tree
in a snow globe forest framed by my glass
office door with festive Christmas decorations
backlit by hallway fluorescents.

I don’t know how to say it.

He says after seconds of silence,
tears streaming fast, time slowing,
eyes downcast as he contemplates
the liminal space between us.

Sit down, take a breath. Let me get you some Kleenex.

Can I show you instead?
He asks after an endless minute,
failing to conceal his twisted expression.

Of course. I reply, anxiety dressed as confidence.

He hands me his tablet with a letter he’d written
to his friend; words tumbling like frozen water
down a crevasse of bottomless distress.

His friend is dead.

The dead friend’s brother, who my student never met,
texted him last night at 7pm to report his brother,
my student’s friend, was dead. He didn’t say how,
and my student didn’t ask, for reasons I can only guess.

He never met his friend in person, never saw his face,
but they played video games every day for three years
more or less. And they studied together to keep each
other on track for college.

Separate but connected in their respective apartments,
at their desks in the blue glow of computer tablets
or on unmade beds, gangly legs extended
in soft pajama bottoms.

My student in Manhattan,
his friend in Jersey,
Los Angeles or Dallas.

We had so much in common.

He says from the depths of adolescent helplessness
etched in his unwrinkled countenance; a River
Styx of departed innocence crossing
his trembling lips.

Maureen Martinez (she/her) is an emerging poet working as a counselor at an all-boys Catholic high school in New York City for over 20 years.  She has four grown sons.  Even the dogs are male.  She comes from a long line of countryside ramblers, barefoot dancers and raucous storytellers, which explains a lot.  Her poetry is published or forthcoming by Meniscus, Folly Journal, Moonstone Arts Center, Washington Square Review, The Listening Eye, Gramercy Review and Please See Me.