Sometimes, Wandering

Sometimes, wandering before dawn,
my curtains drawn against the moon,
I have bumped into you
in the long grey hall leading from my bedroom.
You stand huddled into the wall
scribbling in your yellow notebook
as though that could save you.
I wonder that you never warned us,
or was it so enormous
that I in my jerky male youthfulness never saw?
But, Love, your poetry was crude -
as your death:
you were never Sylvia Plath.
When they found you - waterlogged, nude -
that gaping hole through your head -
your parents were embarrased,
prayed loudly for your poor lost soul.
I was not so bold. Oh, I wept,
at home, at night, alone.
I slept before and after,
and only sometimes, wandering,
do I remember you at all.
Why have you not let go?
Why do you huddle and scribble
at night in my long empty hall?
Do you improve your verse?
Do they let you do that?
Sometimes, on dark mornings, I hear you in the hall -
so go to you, but you, preceptor of silence,
busy, bent to your task, ignore me.
Standing over you there in the hall,
paternal and guilty, I wonder that we never guessed
that such a fragile existence
must end abruptly.

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used with permission