Song to Gabriel Hirsch

We first met in your home. Outside,

summer fire. Inside, Texas

summer ice, I was wiped out

by travel and illness, lying on a couch,

which made me a good height for you to talk to.

That I had a son with the same name

as you, struck you with wonder—me, too—

one name, one label, two beings. We said,

to each other, I think, whatever came into

our minds—put there by what the other

had just said—as if we threw,

one by one, taking turns, those

intensely dried paper flowers

of my childhood, into a glass of water,

and watched them uncurl, fast, uneven,

and bright—and tossed another. We were in

the present moment, so intensely in it

everything outside it took a step back,

out of the light, then another step back.

And that was where we met, next,

years later, in that light, you were so

intent, alert, alive, as if

in the grip of a fierce brightness, and moving

around in it, quick in its grip. I wish I had

been there, last week, to hear your best friend,

who had met you eye to eye—in what,

in your childhood, was the future—talk of how

extraordinary you were, my almost

unknown dear, your mother’s and father’s

dearest. You were wearing a cape, that first day,

a cloak of many colors, a cloud,

your hand on the shoulder of the wild creature of your life.