James Crews: After Receiving Bad News from a Friend

for Paula Gordon Lepp


Malignant: a word with too many

syllables, too much density

in the mouth. A word no one wants.

And yet, it comes like any

unwelcome visitor, with a knock

at the door we’d rather ignore

but cannot. I think of my friend

handing me a jar of muscadine

and grape jelly last summer,

spreading that deep purple sweetness

across a piece of toasted sourdough

and tasting the sun now trapped

in each bite. How I am still feasting

on the labor of her love, that old

family recipe passed down through

the generations. Maybe any misfortune,

unlocks life’s truest instruction,

which is to simply be right here

for each other, to share the light

our bodies already know how to store

and turn into food. To offer what we can,

even when a friend lives far away,

to say: I will hold you inside myself

as you pass through this new gate.

I will walk with you, giving whatever

love I have preserved for this moment.

~~~~

Copyright 2026 James Crews

James Crews’s many books include Breathing Room: Poems of Rest and Retreat (Mandala, 2026). His work has been awarded the Prairie Schooner Prize and Cowles Prize. He has also been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Ploughshares, and The Sun Magazine.