Friend,

Twenty automobiles and twenty half-reflections I must have mistaken for yours
In the twenty minutes I stood in the dead-end street, waiting for you.

Your shadow which emerged finally from the leaves was too narrow, but the embrace
too tight and too long was exactly yours, strange and strangely comforting.

You were not aware of the distance between our cups at reunion's commencement,
For you were already deep in recollection.

I, on the other hand, was just relearning the seagull of your upper lip
When you told me with a sad eye and a light laugh about the dots on your brow and the vegetarianism.

It was for your heart that you discarded the red meat first, then the white,
And for your heart that you went flying yesterday with the young boys, young and brazen.

My heart almost stopped for you, but the beating of yours is from faith, half-horrified at the height but birdlike still,
The perseverance of the wounded into joy, for now parceled and broken.