Poem for Riccardo

It's happened enough

that I know to be afraid:

when I leave this place

only sketches and reappearing odors

will interrupt the immediate reduction of detail.

To you, I will not do justice.

Will I remember your quiet hands?

Two still rows of chimes

speaking to the dogs

tracing me with a surveyor's precision

lying idle, ordered, palm-up, upon your thighs.

I might remember the cashmere fineness of your hair,

how often I look and find you moved to tears,

that you cannot bear the heat of a lukewarm bath

the acidity of a tomato

a glass of wine undiluted,

that you teared when I joked, "How I hate you!"

roared fear when I leaned too far over a bridge.

Now I can feel the cool skin next to your closed eye,

pulling against my lips---

but in one month, will I?

Will I still know the calm depth of your shoulders,

the slicing of ropes within when you swaddled me

undone

in your silent ape arms?