No Address
—in memory of B.D.
my oldest friend has left us
he now has no address or
his address is now not numbered
there’s no street to be remembered
no place that I can place him and
now ephemeral I miss him
he was a bollard I could tie to
I could call him when I’d want to
I could talk with him of childhood and
the changes that we went through
(how that world seemed less in torment)
and though we knew our days were numbered
we could go there in a phone call but
palpable as past was when we
laughed about our dreaming we
could riff on time still streaming
in the moments we were living, we
could pick up where we’d left off
the last time we were speaking as if
years had lost their meaning,
as if nothing really mattered but the
talk that we were having, which we
owed to long affection and
as we swapped our thoughts in breaths
there was no reason to be grieving
.
by Jim Culleny
6/23/16
.