Poem after poem elegiac, the bodies of friends swept up like the streets of old Russia…
& goodbye, goodbye, strings played with a thumb…
If I think how fragile you are I will lose my words.
Silly to admit,
I’d thought the books of youth prepared us
But Deborah’s cancer, Toni’s,
& losing Gary at sea—
The pages cocalcimined by time
Books gone yellow
& the fervid dark coming in…
& night spurring its black flanks pierced with stars.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 