Who else understood? Your edgy, defeated laugh?
The modest, unhopeful evangelism of your final appeal

People caught in a homeland-trap:
to speak now in this weary language

In his next incarnation he’ll be a sword: the hurt will re-
      main.

And their faces are still crisscrossed
with God’s will.

I fought all the knights, until the electricity gave out.
And that is my glory.

And so farewell to you, who will not slumber,
for all was in our words, a world of sand.

You had a laughter of grapes:
many round green laughs.

Rain of the months and years we had 
known each other pressed in, printing 
the new car as we left the wedding. 

“Is it raining there?”
your voice on the phone
wondered for no reason

As if it’s important that summer remain 
here on the river’s bank, the tree sheds 
its fainter leaves: mauve