Although it took over thirty years to come to write "Best Man", it is a story I needed to tell. Despite this long gestation, it was not until I was well into the writing of it that I first considered-why now, why now was I writing about a brother gone for three decades? An answer to the question came and worked itself into the poem "Introducing". How was I to explain this part of my life to someone new in my life, to my then future wife Susan Ennis. I thank her for this impetus, and for the love that sustains my writing. "Best Man" comprises twenty-three poems. Jason lived to be twenty-three. For my parents, now deceased, who did their utmost to sustain him, and to my brother Arthur who shared Jason's life and has his own story to tell-this book is offered. -Owen Lewis