Because you said so (for Greg)

​

​

You always knew how to dress immaculately for any occasion.
(my parents wished we would date.)
And throw the best parties and make the most festive cocktails.
(with you I drank icy gin and vodka in tiny vessels.)
And laughed when I said you intimidated me with your savoir-faire.
(you introduced me to chocolate-dipped strawberries decades ago.)

​

We met on the Rotunda steps when you offered me my first julep.
Then we danced to Aretha.
And listened to an organ concert.
(how you played all keyboards like you were born to do so.)
Your small town Virginia chief-of-police father.
My small town California cornet-playing diplomat dad.
Your cosmopolitan everything.
My bashfulness in spite of world travels.
(our Francophilia linked us.)

​

In the times before success stories you were among the prey.
(with fevers and lesions and weight loss.)
I brought you chilled melon soup.
(closed doors with orange biohazard stickers.)
You told me insurance would save your life.
(and kept apologizing when the soup made you queasy.)

​

ICU was foreign territory for this 26-year-old.
(where I met your parents and sister.)
Listed as family, I was permitted to hold you.
(your long, cracked nails on dry hands and feet.)
Tentative and then firm strokes on your arms and legs.
Feeling rigid muscles ease.
(your sudden tears looping around a ventilator strap.)

​

That summer (before the one when you left me)
I travelled with a ludicrous French “countess”.
Your laughter and rosy cheeks as you watched my parody.
And told me “write your stories.”

​

I will read them aloud to you.

​

​

​

​

Author's Note:

This poem was first published in Louisville Eccentric Observer (Literary LEO, 2019).