Gabo

Marquez has dementia and phones
his brother with simple questions

his life unwritten unfurls as a banner on an
endless battlefield
wrapped around the forgiving and
contemplative eyes that always stared at me from the severely
worn paperback with the Rousseau cover

i miss Gabriel Garcia Marquez

i miss the music of his poetry describing a thousand
foolish characters and the smells
of his cities
i miss not knowing who he is when i read him and
not caring
i miss the bookmark his work of loneliness crafted
connecting me to my love
and the sound of her laughter when she found herself
reading it again

i have always been proud of him and i don't know why
have always lived with his souls
have nestled in his blankets in awe

i still find myself
returning to his words like the door of a
lost home filled
with antique intimacies and the voices of dead relatives and
the feel on my cheek of chilly fog emanating from
the wondrous ice of gypsies who will
die and never leave