Sometimes, at night,
When I can relax from being someone else,
I call up from my memory
The ones I've left behind,
And wonder if I will ever see them again.
Dear Al,
My link to sanity,
With his wisecracks and jokes,
And the pain I sometimes see shadowed in his eyes;
Stately Verbena, bubbly Tina,
Gooshie and the rest.
But there's a face
That hovers just on the edge of memory;
A face I can never see clearly,
No matter how hard I try.
Who are you?
I feel that I should know you,
That you are somehow important to me.
But the memory,
Fragile as an orchid,
Fades.
So I lie back in my empty bed,
Feeling the fingers of my left hand clench tightly,
As if trying to hold on to something
Infinitely precious.