I’d never have branded
you fortunate—
at your most candid
you’d never endorse it.
Of course, in its
way our boyhood had its share
of happy accidents proportionate
to despair.
Slingshot wars and fists,
scrapping over infamy like rival
abortionists.
No real question of survival.
Now they need you “desert-side,”
then what?
If you go I might
start praying again, but
don’t blame me for having begun
to grieve.
You’ve been, save one
summer weekend of leave,
beamed to space and back, things
said me to you, you to me in voices
fragile on mobile phones crackling,
a universe of noises.
