Dear Joe

  if you have ever tried to reach me 
  and I could not hear you
  these words are in place of the dead air 
  still between us.
  —"Morning Is a Time for Miracles"

How many other dark young men at 33 
left their public life becoming legend 
the mysterious connection
between whom we murder
and whom we mourn?

Everyone here likes our blossoms 
permanent
and the flowers around your casket 
will never die
preserved without error
in the crystals between our lashes 
they will never bang down the phone 
in our jangled ears at 3:30 A.M.
nor call us to account for our silence 
nor refuse to answer
or say get away from me
this is my way  or say
we are wrong  prejudiced lazy 
deluded  cowardly  insignificant  faint
or say fuck you seven times in one sentence
when the circumstance of our lives
becomes so chaotic
words fly away like drunken buzzards 
or say we might fail  or say
we might fail but that's no reason
to stop  to miss a beat
and the tinny jukebox music
comes up through the floor of our shoes.

Nobody here will lean too heavily
on your flowers
nor lick the petals of the lavender gladiola
for a hint of sweetness 
wilting it with a whiskey blast 
threatening the faint-hearted
with a handshake or a bottle of beer.

In the side pews  always ghosts 
who resemble
our brothers  past and future
who say they were also our lovers  but they lie 
terror caught in their throats like a lump of clay 
and the taxi is waiting to take them back 
out to the sunshine.

A pale refugee from a nameless country 
hawks wired roses from stool to stool 
down the street
at the Pathmark Pharmacy
a drag-queen with burgundy long-johns 
and a dental dam in his mouth
is buying a straight razor.