Poise

–For Andrea Skillen (1968-2002)

I see that steady beauty mark
and hear your clear dissenting voice say
oh c’mon, as I scratch this note to you
on a low, wet day in summer.

You wouldn’t want the fuss, I know, not
trust the souped-up sentiment—it’s just
I’m trying to arrange a parting batch
of verse before we all get too disorganized, stray

far apart, forget the dates of birthdays
you’d have marked inside your calendar (Strange
to think that in a certain numbered space
you’ve stopped and we keep going on.)

If it scares me in the future that
things we did might blur, get lost, as if you’d
slipped off to a back room in a badly-lighted
bar with greying carpets, I equally know

your footwork on the dance floor
or that purple grin of lipstick will not
escape remembering. Just as we won’t soon
forget that hospital bed, the undying

laughter there, and you and Claire grown
more beautiful with courage.
The word I’m thinking of is poise, why
we’ll miss you greatly in the years

that come, and wonder what you’d say, each
semblance of your remembered wit reminding us how
whole years pass by without telling
our friends how much we love them,

so I’m telling them now.