Conversation Poem by Frank Avon

for J.M.M.,1936-1998


We should have talked again - he and I -
would have, if we had met somewhere, begun
as if we had never left off, in mid-sentence
almost, as we did once before (young
we were then, and would have been once more
in what we said or were to one another) .

We didn't. Comatose, he lingered. Speechless
now, alien, I called but could not call out: Begin
again! Even so. He spoke no word, but what
I heard, I heard, though I was not there in that
hospice room, so neat, toneless; I did not see,
with my own eyes, the bed clothes rise,
when he lifted his finger to beat time
with untimely carolers, or when he raised
his arms as if to conduct one more time
a chorus from 'The Messiah.' Alas, he could
no longer sing, nor could I, but what he spoke
in those faint strains, he spoke. And I - I heard.