In the ICU by the bedside where the respirator
breathed, I stood as if I were standing with you 
on a cusp or a horizon in a slim bend of light
at an intemperate, almost foreign border.

You were silent as you had been for days, unable 
to be anything other than silent, listless, discolored.
It was Thursday afternoon when I finally said 
it would be all right if you wanted to stop 

Said that your daughter was driving up 
from New Orleans. Would be where I was 
soon  ̶  beside the bed  ̶  beside you along with Stuart. 
That Stu was home at that very moment, tucking
sheets, tidying-up a room of grief for your daughter.

You are behind the camera in all the crimson suffused
sunset photos of Florida beaches, the snapped shots 
of the rest of us on Christmas Eve, the small bands
ringing the table you’d set, lifting glasses toward your lens.

There will never be another spoonful of turtle soup
without you there and not there. You=ve been
with me for every such sip at various and sundry 
restaurants throughout south Louisiana since you made 
that soup for the four of us one night in maybe '92.

Soup beside which all the rest have paled. 
Though they have all been good enough, I guess,
to keep me going through these days of tragedy 
and joy where you will never be again. But still

a spoonful of soup, evening fog in oaks,
certain lights in through window onto bric-a-brac
or under chair legs on a rug seize our hearts 
and bring you back to us.