a reflection

He talks and puffs away like he's in a boxing ring. He puffs and puffs away and from way far in the back I can't see his face, but his presence is big and it comes through to me in the deep and course sounds of his voice the way he tells about the death of his sons. How he shot himself in the mouth and died... addicted to heroine... then a few days later his other son dies... his wife dies... and he remembers it like yesterday, the exact details, his wife dying on the bed where his son had died two days ago... the son hugging the toilet bowl and vomiting and excrements down his body and underpants, no, nobody wants to die, nobody wants to die that way, nobody should want to die like that, not when the son said he would turn around and be good, but still he went out of jail and died two days later. The way this man is able to tell all of this with precision, the numbers...