"Recognition of a Friend (for D.R.)"

My hair grew like summer days
Longer and longer
You caught strands of it between
your gentle fingers
And when i came to pacing
You stilled my feet
You took my implements of self-destruction
Somewhere away from me

Then, like that,
You were gone
I got a call that my grandmother
still has on her answering machine
(which is my old answering machine)
Lauren asking me if i had heard
Me insisting that it was lies
Screaming that it was all lies
Begging that fate let it all be a lie

But i saw the flowers
And i saw the casket
And i met the girl who had held your hand last
A volunteer for the ambulance team
Who watched slow moments of final,
fateful
suffering

Cried, i did, i cried an ocean
I flooded the shores with my tears
Every song i heard echoed your voice
And things i had long since put away,
Skeletons you had insisted that i burn,
Came back to haunt me,
Came back to tear and to claw at me

But then you touched me in a dream
The strands of my hair which i had shorn
Days before you had gone--And i am
remembering that i never told you,
That i knew that i would have forever to tell you
Someday, my friend,
We will walk down the last path together
And i shall have forever to tell you.