​Brother and Sister and Seascape


After too many months apart
we get into your car,
drive through the pale November air
to Point Lookout's miles of beach
and park--the only car in sight--

along a border of brown sand
unblemished by any people.
Now and again a seagull waddles
beside the shifting rim of surf
but, finding nothing, spreads

its grey-white wings and flaps
so high it's only a distant dot.
Left behind, the rise and roll
of a hundred little waves
stretches back until it reaches

the haze on the horizon.
Gazing at this scene,
how could we not
                        tell each other
everything we deeply feel.

previously published in MUDDY RIVER POETRY REVIEW



Friendship
  (for Joel)

I was wrong.
The poems I wrote to express
my sorrow over your death
were not enough,

and now my sleep is startled
by dreams of you,
dreams that take place
in your CD-crammed apartment
or in book stores and museums
we liked best

       or at Hofstra College where
a half century ago
on a lucky day for me
we met at a HAMLET rehearsal.

Yet even these grieving dreams
won't be enough--
because none of them
has the courage to take place
in the hospital room where you died.