Calendar dates, signs from the dead, and visits in dreams,
almost convince us life is less real
than what almost seems more real
behind life’s curtain when it slips.
Is this proof of immortality?
Should we surrender and be certain?
What can be more real than memory,
when it remembers all things?
Life happens once, and, honestly, has no plot.
Or, if mine does, I remember it not.
The movie critic turned to me and said,
“Is he back from watching his life yet?
I have a deadline. When will he be dead?”
We almost met. He went to bed
with Kent two months after our friendship was dead.
I was jealous of Kent and Niki and lost them both.
He met Kent in July, 1978.
And now that they are gone,
He, who knew them, too, reminds me of my fate,
recounting dreams in which Kent,
who died of AIDS in 1988, visited.
I was love-burned, having lost my virginity to Niki,
then Niki. That July, when I was in agony,
Niki entered Kent’s bedroom vivaciously.
She laughed. They were now roommates.
How does one stay calm in love?
No one taught me how.
This is how my poetry was defeated then,
and thanks to him, a stranger, lives now.