I followed you into the closet
Into the dark silence where my welcome wasn’t clear
You were kneeling next to your stepfather
Your sobs a rhythm of release
Inconsolable and closed, surrounding me

I remember your countless confusions
Your waxing and waning
Your perfect smile magnetized as you closed your eyes
“So much,” you said.
Our kitchen was riddled with the laughter of friends
The sun too bright to grill salmon in the heart of summer

You were alone for a spell even as I knew you
The glass of the lake
Shattered as I broke the surface and your laughter echoed
Against the tall stone wall of the rock face
The mountain that we climbed again and again

The trail was long through meadow and stone
A cat in tow, wondering in the wild, silent dusk
We retired.
Your skin sparkled with dew and goosebumps
As you slept in the afternoon sun

I remember how you used to call out
Your voice shattering in screams
Sopping wet in the hollow of your heaving chest
Begging and surrendering and filling the room
We collapsed into each other
Not one of us to be distinguished
I wondered if the neighbors would hear
Though their house was far from ours

An old candle, fragile flicker of the wick
Finishing alongside us on the corner table
Next to your altar

How can one grieve what never came to life?
Rather than holding silence in the unfinished chill
Of an empty bed in winter.
In a city that never sleeps

This city. That asks me not to leave
But to watch and join the cacophanous row
Brick and brown stone figures
Shaping my hollow mind
Laying stone between foot and earth
Calling my heart from my chest
As the water pouring from a fire hydrant
Calls for laughter in this unbearable heat

The great Hudson
Mannahatta with all of your history
Broadway running a diagonal
Indigenous walking path
Across an island of glass and steel

Big river serving stones in my heart
And rushing, rushing, to carry you away
Inviting me to stay
To never leave again, but instead to
Just keep it
Coming, and coming and coming.