Just like you to show up after so long, cupping our memories in your hammock hands - the house with two kitchens, thin shoots growing on the sill, bags of horseshit in a shopping cart, the patch of grass where I sat, head between my knees, trying not to decant breakfast onto my shoes. How I loved you then - you who mourned every dead deer between Philly and Pittsburgh, met the mouths of other men on the dance floor, refused to set foot on a plane, now posting pictures of your wife and kids laughing in Greece because tickets were cheap. Before you owned land and expensive bikes, before you held the space between us as water in your palms, I leaned in to see your face, young and possible, not yet a memory of itself in the shadow of backyard trees.
griffin epstein is a settler working in education and community-driven research in Tsí Tkaròn:to. They are the author of the chapbooks so we may be fed (Frog Hollow Press, 2021) and it matters how we live (Black Sunflowers Press, 2026). griffin’s poetry has appeared in new words (press), CV2, Grain, Muzzle, The Maynard, and Plenitude. They play guitar and shout in LOST UNIT and believe in harm reduction, disability justice, and a free Palestine. griffinepstein.com