"Elegy for John, My Student Dead of AIDS" (Robert Cording)

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Elegy for John, My Student Dead of AIDS
by Robert Cording

In my office, where you sat years ago and talked
Of Donne, of how you loved
His persona, the bravado he could muster
To cover love’s uncertainties,
Books still line the shelves, centuries
Of writers who’ve tried to make a kind of sense
Of life and death and, failing that,
Found words to stand at least
Against the griefs we can’t resolve.

Now you’re dead. And what I’ve got to say
Comes now from that silence
When our last talk fouled up. I allowed you less,

As always, than you wanted to say.
We talked beside the Charles, a lunch hour reunion
Of sorts after years of your postcards
(New York, San Francisco, Greece),
Failed attempts to find a place to live.
The warm weather had come on

In a rush. You talked of being the first born,
Dark-haired, Italian son. How you rarely visited
The family you so clearly loved.
I shifted to books, to sunlight falling
Through sycamores and the idle play of underlying
Shadows. When we parted,
All that was really left was the feeling
You deserved better. And yet I was relieved
Our hour was up, that we had kept your confusion

To yourself. We shook hands, you drove off to Boston.
Now you’re dead and I wonder
If your nobleness of living with no one
To turn to ended in dishonor,
Your family ashamed. Or if your death had
About it a frail dignity,
Each darkening bruise precise as a writer’s word,
Saying, at last, who you were– exactly
And to anyone who would listen.

Comments

[mikkie28.livejournal.com]

thank you.