for Avarell

It was Sunday morning, I had the New York

Times spread out on my dormitory floor, its

black print coming off dark silver on the

heels of my palms, it was Spring and I had the

dormer window of my room open, to

let it in, I even had the radio 

on, I was letting it all in, the

tiny silvery radio voices—I

even let myself feel that it was EAster, the

dark flower of his life opening

again, his life being given back

again, I was in love and could take it, the ink

staining my hands, the news on the radio

coming in my ears, there had been a wreck

and they said your name, son of the well-known they

said your name. Then they said where they’d

taken the wounded and the dead, and I called the

hospital, I remember kneeling by the

phone on the third-floor landing of the dorm, the

dark steep stairs down

next to me, I spoke to a young

man a young doctor there in the

Emergency Room, my open ear

pressed to the dark receiver, my open

life pressed to the world, I said

Which one of them died, and he said your name,

he was standing there in the room with you

saying your name.

I remember I leaned my

forehead against the varnished bars of the

baluster rails and held on,

pulling at the rails as if I wanted to

pull them together, shut them like a dark

door, close myself like a door

as you had been shut, closed off, but I could not

do it, the pain kept coursing through me like

life, like the gift of life.