“Time, the punch line to God’s favorite joke, one we never really get.” --Sy Safransky

One of your old students
called last night. He’d just heard
and wanted to talk.
By the end of the conversation
we were saying we loved each other.
We’d never thought to say that
long ago when we’d felt it
and were embarrassed by it.
Now that we’re older, losses,
life’s torturers, loosen our tongues.

I could say death forces love out,
the way an electrical fire
spreads silently through the house at night,
and wakes us, suddenly.
We race for the doors, picking up
what we can. Then stand outside,
shocked, shaking, clouds of smoke,
flames breaking through the roof.

2 -

So, dear friend, for you, no more struggles,
no more retinitus pigmentosa -
eyesight ebbing away as if a wire screen,
you said, were growing thicker,
blocking out the light -
no more bumping into objects
bruising your shins as you made your way
to the kitchen for a midnight snack;
no more brutal insomnia, sleeping pills that failed,
walking silent streets for hours;
no more hand on my shoulder
as I guided you through the dark restaurants;
no more political arguments that you fed
to anyone who needed them, or didn’t.

No more misunderstandings, no more rage;
no more depressed, suicidal sister; no more
alcoholic mother who grabs you and forces you
to dance with her, breathing in your young boy’s face,
no more father who cared so much about you
he relentlessly pushed you around.

No more worry about money,
no more wishing it could have been better,
no more ex-wife, no more ex-house,
no more stoicism, no more neglecting yourself,
no more plans, no more sex,
no more thinking about sex, no more forgetting
about sex, no more anxiety about sex, no more
laughter about sex, no more memories of those girls
you wish you’d known what to do with
when they offered themselves to your hesitant touch.

No more thinking of C, no more
arguments with C, no more struggles with intimacy;
no more loving nights in the large, soft bed, your hand
reaching toward her, finding the dear bone
of her shoulder; no more wondering about the future,
how it would be to go blind.

3 -

You didn’t want a funeral, or a memorial,
but on Sunday we gathered anyway,
not sure what we’d do or say,
and did a lot of laughing,
recalling your wild, inspired dancing,
how you loved your kids, your students
and loathed the indecencies of our lying world.
We were like a flock of small birds
unsure where to fly when those cold winds arrive.
We’d lost our radar. We couldn’t read the stars.
We laughed because we were lost.

Of course we ignored a lot,
kept many things to ourselves;
You and I had good times I won’t tell anyone about.
Jokes I couldn’t repeat exactly,
strange delight and animal dread.
How I wanted you to learn braille
so you could read Kafka in your darkness.

Instead, I am learning the searing
symbols of departure.
I imagine seeing you, unsteady,
weaving down the street.
In dreams, you pack a suitcase.
There are hard ancient pathways
inscribed in us. Logics
I touch but don’t understand.
A language of those who can’t see.
It’s all we have.