[On the death of a friend of a friend]
Thinking, drinking,
Drinking, thinking—
I never knew which came first,
The thinking or the drinking.
Psyche, as always,
Recovered herself.
As an artist, you learn these lessons
All over again with a vengeance:
How different the world looked
Only a few hours ago.
We are seven, echoes in
My head like a nightmare
Of responsibility. We are
Homesick for the key
To a canon of delight,
A situation which is too foul
To be the subject of a tragedy,
And it may be an immense relief
If it can be shown that one’s life
Has the pattern rather
Of a tragedy, the tragic
Working out and repetition
Of a pattern, a worthwhile flavor.
Or red. Or salve.
Every procession ends
In a funeral
And goes away on a boat.
Whenever a book ends,
Silence, as if a stewardship
Had ceased.
This poem is a cento, a kind of poetry quilt made of lines patched from many sources, including the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and other works of poetry and prose (the last three lines, for example, come from Katie Peterson’s Permission). “[On the death of a friend of a friend]” is dedicated to Alice Lyons in memory.