Dear Danny,

I forgot I bought him the book

First thing today, Grey texted six photos

of Jack’s “What Can I Say”

A destiny read, he said

Cage’s chance operations

Grey’s fingers on the edge

of morning pages, Amor Fati’s long spine

pried wide, at first I thought

his fingernails were mine

Remember him?

Jack too large for the tiny screen

I grabbed my own worn copy

scanned the contents, page 66, read it

to Dorell steeping coffee in the kitchen

Jack Fest program tucked in

Seven years ago, the night

you met Grey, just 18, at Lithic you said

How are you or something and he said

Tired, life is long and you said

in your slow, crooked-smile drawl

We can only hope and he shrugged

the smallest shrug. Later that night

he hung briefly off his belt from rafters

in Wendy’s garage, pulled up

against gravity

with hard wiry arms. I wondered

why he wore his black hoody up

the next warm day, stacking a precarious cairn

on the edge of Trickster Ridge, a signpost to life:

Go any direction from here

By miracle, Jack still holds Grey’s hand

in Leadville, sits here with me, in me

watching emptiness, like Wallace,

push snow off pinyon branches

What can we say