We are eight, still looping bicycle chains—
lassoing days, setting them loose.

Not to say we're invincible,
but I’ve seen you play GoldenEye,
never once watched you die—
jumping car to car on an armored train.

Never seen you fall on inline skates,
skimming the curb outside Burger King,
Whopper in hand,
half-moon bite suspended midair.

We aren’t thirty-five. There was no accident.
Your back is still new, still elastic.
No one found you in the attic,
pockets lined with loose change.

We never had enough for another pack of cards,
but the corner store knew our faces—
the Griffeys, the Ripkens, the lesser-known names
fanned before us.

Like your face in today’s local news—
a clip my father sends.
He must have you confused
with someone else.
Another name swallowed by an epidemic.

I’m still wading in the shallow end,
turning as you yell at me to watch—
pumping the diving board, impossibly cool.

And then you take to the air, weightless,
suspended,
there—
then gone.
The board still trembling, waiting for you
to climb back up.