They will always be with us, with their newsof calamity that makes our chests feel some old collapse of our own, a protest against divergence, a bruiseon last bits of skin we thought still freshand fairly managing the task of the presenting flesh
to a world aimed at it. Not just sticks and stones,those wounds heal in not too deep, but the injury that makes us weep, the one from loving lips, moansremembered and annulled now by the hardangle of someone leaving, and someone scarred.
What can I say to my friends? Nothing muchthat will give them solace. ."I too have suffered." hardly counts as any useful buffer against the loss of we and loss of touch.Before long, I'll meet each on the street, one hereand another there, on separate days, in a different year.
