Classic Poem

I remember dancing in July on the banks of the Hudson in the City,
the way some of us, innocent then, reported the rumors
we had heard I remember you, a doctor, discussing your work
on the wards of San Francisco and the way we worried about
our friends and the way you stood in the elevator
pushing an i.v. stand, not really speaking—the calls
at night and the endless plans to move from the city and the fevers
you had and the pills by your bed and the vigil I kept until
you died. I remember the party for your birthday, the way
you wore a floral-print shirt, an amused smile on your thin
face, the flash of my camera filling the room, sudden,
startling even now. Then Scott fell ill soon after and Raymond
was said to have disappeared, no word of funeral or forwarding
address, just unanswered calls to his mother—the never knowing
if he had died and the way I watched Robert stare at the panel
they'd made for Kyle—the way we stood astonished in a room spread full
of names, the fabric of the quilt unfurled, silk-like, brilliant.