My last memory of you,
is watching you walk through a crowd,
not realizing who you were,

Having lost you momentarily,
thinking snidely,
as I watched you,
bogart your way through the herd,
"Why is this old man in such a hurry?"

Then I recognized the hat,
That shaggy hair,
once spun cornsilk,
now grayer than I'd realized.

The trousers,
baggy on your thin frame,
less than thin,
gaunt.

I couldn't shake,
The way your skin hung,
like parchment on jagged bone.

Frail...
The word ricocheted in my mind,
like a rogue pinball...

You had been under the weather.
Dimly,
I understood that.

There had been a battery,
of tests.
A barrage of them,

But for every differential diagnosis,
came a negative finding.
There was and all clear,
nothing to see here,
kind of trend.

Of course it was so.
You were indestructible,
A legend,
A mythical being,

A titanium Phoenix,
rising ever from the ash,
leaving steely slide guitar riffs,
and cold fire in your wake.

I never saw you again after that day,
my birthday.
The next week,
I forgot to call.
Father's Day.

Not because I hadn't thought of it,
The time just always gets past me.
It haunts me still.

We made plans later,
I would make it up to you.
Grilled steaks on the rooftop deck.

You were even on your way,
to reconciling with Dave,
making amends at long last.
The ship was righting itself.

I slept soundly that night.
Groggilly ignored my phone,
in the morning,
But it just kept ringing.

Reaching in the early light,
clumsily,
to check the time,
I thought,

"There had better be something wrong..."