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.

Stillborn-- Ten Years Later

These quiet hiccups run along my belly
an ancient ache that I carry
as familiar as my own skin

Death, my nemesis rarely sleeps
and I remain wrapped in misery
invisible in my imagination.

This pain, so vast it would be the sky.
So deep that it riles the oceans depths.
Dark and thick with oppression.

That it can be dredged up again so easily
so intensely after all these years
is disheartening
and yet it is exactly the way it must be.

The words come and they are always my being
when they must be about a little boy
who now plays celestial catch with stars
on August nights.

About a boy who never took a single breath
but lived nonetheless.

And left me, a student
learning what is most important, what matters.
Love, my redemption
sighs a tiny sigh
as I study peace.