Dear Doomed:

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.