The Silence

    You always called late and drunk，

    your voice luxurious with pain，

    I， tightly wrapped in dreaming，

    listening as if to a ghost.

    Tonight a friend called to say your body

    was found in your apartment， where

    it had lain for days. You'd lost your job，

    stopped writing， saw nobody for weeks.

    Your heart， he said. Drink had destroyed you.

    We met in a college town， first teaching jobs，

    poems flowing from a grief we enshrined

    with myth and alcohol. I envied the way

    women looked at you， a bear blunt with rage，

    tearing through an ever-darkening wood.

    Once we traded poems like photos of women

    whose beauty tested God's faith. 'Read this one

    about how friendship among the young can't last，

    it will rip your heart out of your chest！'

    Once you called to say J was leaving，

    the pain stuck in your throat like a razor blade.

    A woman was calling me back to bed

    so I said I'd call back. But I never did.

    The deep forlorn smell of moss and pine

    behind your stone house， you strumming

    and singing Lorca， Vallejo， De Andrade，

    as if each syllable tasted of blood，

    as if you had all the time in the world. . .

    You knew your angels loved you

    but you also knew they would leave

    someone they could not save.