You said, death is like floating.

Drunk as sailors, loaded on pills,

silly explanation and your face full of ketchup

that was supposed to be on the fries.

We went somewhere in the red Sprite,

packed with your girl buddies and laughter

they loved your gaddabout playful ways.

When we ate tons of little shrimp at Vivian’s,

and after tempura and sake

Vivian’s Dad Mike told me he wanted a son like me.

The way Mike sorted his bills,

one to pay and two for the trash!

Mike died young too,

but not as young as you.

Intoxicated by world revolution and brandy

I arrived at my flat that early morning

to find you waiting for me,

ready for a big breakfast.

That flat of books and records and poems

set to burn by a poltergeist or frayed wire,

without your visit my funeral pyre,

cool ashes on the wind long ago

unlike the spreading embers of

the pyre you now lay upon.

So the bottom of the world falls out

and death is like floating.

1988