I catch myself again;
Looking for you in the doorway.
Expecting you to walk 
out onto the porch, 
wrap an arm around 
my shoulder, and hold me close 
as you did when all the others 
died. 

Not this time. 
No, 
not this time,
you are not here. 
Still, I won’t believe it;
my aching heart skips another beat, 
my stomach somersaults, recognizing 
this helpless hope for the 
impossible possibility – 
that you are 
alive. 

We have all your evidence: 
an instruction set for painters,
heavy typewriters for writing 
weighty words, for poetry,
for Gertrude Stein and Whitman, 
Bukowski, and Kerouac; in English and
approximate French; poetry written 
down on misaligned keys, 
characters askew; words for you,
words for us, words because we exist;
paintings on plywood canvas;
lonely sea fences, space bugs,
spoons, and barbed wire; Your voice 
making sense, or making nonsense 
in our  world; Workspace Wednesday.
All that you touched, and
all you created, 
everywhere you've been, and
everyone you’ve loved,
bear witness to your
beautiful life. 

You were extraordinary, 
Frank.

And we,
we were blessed.



No, 
I don’t believe you are gone.

When your soul’s fragile shell 
failed, death released your 
spirit to dance among the 
atoms of the Universe.

You are  in the water flowing 
down the Gunpowder, 
in the leaves of the grass
along Stonesifer Road;
riding on cool, sweet air breezes 
and blue skies, breaking
August heat in September;
steeping with the Tea in Gainesville;
mixing with the soils of the Earth;
in our breath and in our blood.

For every atom belonging to you
belongs to us.



When we were young, 
I would hold you tightly, 
burry my nose in your hair, and
inhale your scent, 
knowing you were mine 
and I was yours.
Brothers. 

Caught in this memory, I 
barely notice the air 
become still, stagnant July 
heat on my skin,   
rain falls, releasing an 
ephemeral rain-soil scent. 

Inhaling deeply,
I begin again, becoming whole.