If that night could remember it would call him back to our Chinese restaurant to fried rice and steaming tea to our winter refuge of tile and cushions 60s retro black and white Chrome legs of lacquered tables with its mural of our Great Wall
...winding, distant, wonder
If the snow hadn't muffled all but our voices we would not be—
so alone
Only I felt his arm take its chance around my shoulder Guiding warmth as good excuse as any to touch
Two miles on foot An arc in time In lace of white to hide— what might....
Below my window “Good Night” not enough for troubadour singing, pleading, stumbling...
(I worry about his long way home)
...and hardly notice...
How gently Time joins Snow as if they cannot bare instead, conspire Decide the crystals Send the flakes to sift over him
This loss needs snow to blur his face to fade from view....
This— tender let-down from the sky As only snow can do...
Cover with beauty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o6zMPLcXZ8
Lowell, Massachusetts, January, 1970... Love was lost in the storm of war politics, *****, drugs, and grief. His brother was a priest and chaplain, killed in Vietnam.