DEAR FRIEND
in memory of David Castronovo

It took only a little while to fold your books into mine.
I didn’t accept so many, after all.

Some titles we shared, in the same editions
forty years old, or more.

Now no one looking at my row of spines,
would know which was yours and which mine.

Two falcons appear in the trees outside my window; the park’s promenade is their winter hunting ground.

In the afternoon, against the backlit river,
I spy one’s daredevil dive, its breathtaking stop.

The other perches on a branch above, waiting.
So I used to attend to your verbal gymnastics.

No one else could hold forth with such verve,
or dissect social mores with a finer scalpel.

It was like the falcon’s headlong plunge—
you kept your quarry in sight, and carried it away.