I have lived in your face
I have lived in your face. Have I been you? Your mother? giving you birth —this pain whenever I say goodbye to thee —up to now I always wanted it but not this
Used by permission of the author.
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Friend,
You came in a dream, yesterday
—The first day we met
you showed me your dark workroom
off the kitchen, your books, your notebooks.
Reading our last, knowing-last letters
—the years of our friendship
reading our poems to each other,
I would start breathing again.
Yesterday, in the afternoon,
more than a year since you died,
some words came into the air.
I looked away a second,
and they were gone,
six lines, just passing through.
for Adrienne Rich
2013
Friend
Friend I need your hand every morning
but anger and beauty and hope
these roses make one rose.
Friend I need a hand every evening
but anger and hope and beauty
are three roses
that make one rose.
2004
For love,
you leapt sometimes
you walked away sometimes
that time on the phone you
couldn’t get your breath
I leapt but couldn’t get to you
I caught the brow that bid the dead
I caught the bough that hid
I’m, you know, still here,
tulip, resin, temporary—
2016