NOTES ON A POET by Carolyn Marie Souaid

Take the elastic medley of your name—
the skin stretches in spite of my short-lived brain
& later, much, round & round it will go
                           the best vinyl record of the times
I hardly knew you, but for a phone call once
from the ER, where panic poked a hole
& for a flutter, I put aside the typeset
bones of your life
prematurely gathering mites in the basement crates
of a mouldy shop, several shops
coherence, above all, from you, above
the hospital hum of x-ray machines & gurgling syringes,
your brief on how to help a friend
prone to losing things trace a way from the car
back to his missing key
the abbreviated cosmos in under a minute
complete in a coffee spoon, in the shrinking light
through a coin booth:
your final beautiful chemical waltz
jjust days before you checked out