When
a friend dies, part
of
oneself splits off
and
spins into the outer dark.
No
use calling it back.
No
use saying I miss you.
Part
of one's body has been riven.
One
recollects gestures,
mostly
trivial. The way
he
pinched a cigarette,
the
way he crouched on a chair.
Now
he is less than a living flea.
Where
has he gone, this person
whom
I loved? He is vapor now;
he
is nothing. I remember
talking
to him about the world.
What
a rich place it became
within
our vocabulary. I did not
love
it half so much until
he
spoke of it, until it was sifted
through
the adjectives of our discussion.
And
now my friend is dead.
His
warm hand has been reversed.
His
movements across a room
have
been erased. How I wish
he
was someplace specific. He
is
nowhere. He is absence.
When
he spoke of the things
he
loved - books, music, pictures,
the
articulation of idea -
his
body shook as if a wire
within
him suddenly surged.
In
passion, he filled the room.
Where
has he gone, this friend
whom
I loved? The way he shaved,
the
way he cut his hair, even
the
way he squinted when he talked,
when
he embraced idea, held it -
all
vanished. He has been reduced
to
memory. The books he loved,
I
see them on my shelves. The words
he
spoke still group around me. But
this
is chaff. This is the container
now
that heart has been scraped out.
He
is defunct now. His body is less
than
cinders; less than a sentence
after
being whispered. He is the zero
from
which a man has vanished. He
was
the smartest, most vibrant,
like
a match suddenly struck, flaring;
now
he is sweepings in a roadway.
Where
is he gone? He is nowhere.
My
friends, I knew a wonderful man,
these
words approximate him,
as
chips of stone approximate
a
tower, as wind approximates a song.