Elegy for Bill Reed

Day one was easy. We drank coffee and talked for hours
on a hip Fort Mundane patio. Phantom of the café, eccentric, broke—
in lonesome kenosis, you pondered Fibonacci in the hearts of flowers.

Lazy dharma sealed our communion. I worried if you ate or showered.
Dear brother, you always reeked of ashtrays and ancient smoke 
when we drank coffee, watched ends glow, and talked for hours.

Proud mathematician, you bragged that you fled CU’s ivory tower.
I applauded. We were sort of Fort Morgue buddhas when we spoke
of nada, paused and wrote of Fibonacci in the hearts of flowers.

My kids called you Uncle Bill on Thanksgiving. Your exponential power
grew petaled mandalas, maxims, poems, countless philosophical jokes.
I bloomed, too, when we drank coffee and talked for hours.

Yellow walls, yellow teeth knocked out by stroke. Your guffaw never dour.
Soft-hearted old hermit, saved by love—your fractal mind, unyoked,
simply preferred, over kinfolk, Fibonacci in the hearts of flowers.

Especially Rose. You texted once: I fear dying alone. How were
we to know you would—of course you would, gentle misanthrope—
as we laughed, lit matches, drank coffee and talked for hours?
Now you dream electric seeds, Fibonacci in the hearts of flowers.

2021

for my dear friend, with no obituary, who would likely prefer the title, "Billanelle"

Keen

One day our flesh and bone were nearly,

then dearly, cut away by hands we made.

One day strange hands filleted our breasts,

beloved friends, from our narrow rib cage.

Our men hold ground, grasp our feet

lifting off, pull us down from pain to arms,

from frayed rope, from blood, from knife,

from gun smoke, from sky, from fruitless hope.

Sisters! we cry, mountains away, our hands

too far to reach each other’s face and crown.

Distance requires wailing into phones

No no, no no, breath-broke, broken stones

rolling through our animal throats—pitched

grief washed voices only women know.

Do not mistake this duet for a song. If flesh

were not going or already gone, if someone

stood outside our panes of glass, peered in,

watched the scene unfold in silent mime:

our hands pressing slim machines

against our ears, our pacing out a pattern

on the rug, our gaping mouths, spasm spines,

eyes clamped shut, heads thrown back

could be mistaken for our ancient belly laugh.