Pablo Saliba

A Mexican man, I once knew awhile back, an amateur poet, who was trying to make it, but never did finish one single poem, we nicknamed him, "Da Vinci." He was a good ol' boy, we always saw him smiling, always with a broken heart. He never seemed to care, he never seemed to question, or bother with such curious thoughts, he went with the flow, and never finished a poem. We later nicknamed him, "The unfinished poem." One night-you may find this hard to believe-but good ol' Pablo did finish a poem, he named it, "Pablo Saliba" and marked his signature with blood and bits of brain and skull. We found him, two days later, there laying face down, blood all drained onto the maple floorboards, and under his pale, lifeless face, his finished poem. We buried him two days later, his death was marked as, "Natural Causes" I think it was suicide. A good ol' boy, not even twenty, and dead already. At least he finished one poem, I hung it up on my bedroom wall, next to my framed picture of Ernest Hemingway. And sometimes, when I am stuck on a word or two, I look up and over and there, my good friend Pablo Saliba looks at me and winks, and I start to write again, I start to smoke and drink again, I start to live again, and work again. Good ol' Saliba, this one is for you.