My Dead Friends
My friends are dead who were
the arches the pillars of my life
the structural relief when
the world gave none.
My friends who knew me as I knew them
their bodies folded into the ground or burnt to ash.
If I got on my knees
might I lift my life as a turtle carries her home?
Who if I cried out would hear me?
My friends—with whom I might have spoken of this—are gone.
Copyright © 2022 by Marie Howe. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 22, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
“The poem speaks about Jason Shinder, Tony Hoagland, Lucie Brock-Broido, and Richard McCann: great souls, brilliant writers, beloved friends. The italicized line is from The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke. The first complete line of the first elegy is ‘Who, if I called out, would hear me among the angels’ hierarchies?’”
—Marie Howe
Marie Howe
Marie Howe was born in 1950 in Rochester, New York. She worked as a newspaper reporter and teacher before receiving her MFA from Columbia University in 1983. She currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.