Lost Friend

Why talk so much, like Socrates
pulled into a whirlpool of thought last August
only to drown in an iced December?

Your blood: now tainted with bits of ink
smelling of purple-violet-violet and yellow-yellow-green
Your hands: now a bruised dandelion thicket
digits missing the flowery tops
because you had to pick them all off?

We miss your beautiful earthy hair filled with foreign stems
the days in April when you begged to dance in the rain
without finishing the ripe pear I brought you.

Now, nothing but November.  The leaves
clinging to your scarred thighs and neon lips: whispering
This scab is all I have.