we'd be wiser

happy 23rd birthday, my manatee. still texting from a few feet away? FOR SHAME.
i miss your face. here, there are a lot of breathing people. lolo's on his way there.

---------------------

For Andrew Salkey
(And in memory of Sam Selvon)

A Death in the Family
(i.m. Aldrew Salkey, 1928-95)

Dear Andrew, I heard of your passing in passing,
tipping it a little in the flow of loss we must wade through
and I apologize, as we do, for not being there;
we expected you back, not like this, to those interrupted
talks in Moscow Road, which would go better now
with the strain of travel and search for allies behind us; we'd be wiser
now -- all those Jerusalems desecrated -- glossing friendship
with no sparring for advantage, no fear of surrender.

You signed off your letters, Venceremos. I'd planned to answer
the last one with a quip, a bit of gossip, tales
of our slippage over here. Forgive me if this sounds like a voice
grown distant; but thank you, Andrew Salkey, anthologist of wastes
and triumphs of our story. Ever frail but renewable, our barrier
against spoilers who make the earth more wretched, holds your text.


--E.A. Markham, 1995