And in a poem called "Piccola Elegia," which
just means "little elegy," for a friend of mine
that I knew at the University of Iowa named Nicky Goldman.
He died when he was 26.
At the end of the poem, the image I'm trying to work with
is the Viking funeral, where they put the boat on fire
and send it out to sea.
Nicky, the word has come to the West Coast,
of how you shuffled your feet, stammered, and slipped out
the back door when no one was looking.
What did you have in mind?
I picture myself back there in the kitchen,
peering out through the glass, then
through the orchard, your shirt a small red dot among the apple
trees that run down the long slope.
The water glitters and flashes in the cold sunlight.
I tried to open the window to tell you to wait, to come back.
But it is too late, too late in the day.
Already the boat is adrift.
It is on fire.
The flames splash at the gunwales.
And you are smoke, Nicky.
You are smoke.