Those unstrung beads of oil

seem precious now, now

that the light has changed.

Père Lachaise

Along the ruined avenues the long gone lie

under the old stones. For 10 francs, a map unravels

the crumbling paths which lead to the late great.

A silent town. A vast, perplexing pause.

The living come, murmuring with fresh flowers, their maps

fluttering like white flags in the slight breeze.

April. Beginning of spring. Lilies for Oscar,

one red rose for Colette. Remembrance. Do not forget.

Turn left for Seurat, Chopin, Proust, and Gertrude Stein

with nothing more to say. Below the breathing trees

a thousand lost talents dream into dust; decay

into largely familiar names for a stranger’s bouquet.

Forever dead. Say these words and let their meaning

dizzy you like the scent of innumerable petals

here in Père Lachaise. The sad tourists stand

by the graves, reciting the titles of poems, paintings, songs,

things which have brought them here for the afternoon.

We thread our way through the cemetery, misquoting

or humming quietly and almost comforted.

Two young men embrace near Piaf’s tomb.

Funeral

Say milky cocoa we’d say,

you had the accent for it,

drunk you sometimes would. Milky

cocoa. Preston. We’d all

laugh. Milky cocoa. Drunk,

drunk. You laughed, saying it.

From all over the city

mourners swarmed, a demo against

death, into the cemetery.

You asked for nothing.

Three gravediggers, two minutes

of silence in the wind. Black

cars took us back. Serious

drinking. Awkward ghosts

getting the ale in. All afternoon

we said your name, repeated

the prayers of anecdotes,

bereaved and drunk

enough to think you might arrive,

say milky cocoa . . . Milky

cocoa, until we knew you’d gone.

Dream of a Lost Friend

You were dead, but we met, dreaming,

before you had died. Your name, twice,

then you turned, pale, unwell. My dear,

my dear, must this be? A public building

where I’ve never been, and, on the wall,

an AIDS poster. Your white lips. Help me.

We embraced, standing in a long corridor

which harboured a fierce pain neither of us felt yet.

The words you spoke were frenzied prayers

to Chemistry; or you laughed, a child-man’s laugh,

innocent, hysterical, out of your skull. It’s only

a dream, I heard myself saying, only a bad dream.

Some of our best friends nurture a virus, an idle,

charmed, purposeful enemy, and it dreams

they are dead already. In fashionable restaurants,

over the crudités, the healthy imagine a time

when all these careful moments will be dreamed

and dreamed again. You look well. How do you feel?

Then, as I slept, you backed away from me, crying

and offering a series of dates for lunch, waving.

I missed your funeral, I said, knowing you couldn’t hear

at the end of the corridor, thumbs up, acting.

Where there’s life . . . Awake, alive, for months I think of you