For Greg

At four am or the "hour of ghosts" I feel
a warm hand on my shoulder and I am twenty years back
in Sacramento in his dented yellow car.

We are both young again.

I smell tobacco even through my cold ridden nose
and though he wasn't a smoker until after I knew him well
this is one of the ways I know he is in my room now.

He has regrets.

The zip of the years passed us both
and left this gentle man
a corpse in a doorway on a cold October evening.

Homeless in the end.

I remember his rich, deep voice
and his passion for words and ideas
although I have lost our conversations over the years.

My sweet friend.