For Hiram

My friend of forty years died alone
in his home on the Upper West Side
where I so often slept in my twenties.
I was told he was dead for days.

My hands hold gently his agonized face.
Current burns my fingers, electric
shocks course memory upon memory—
the connection breaks.

He sometimes reminds me of James Earl Jones.
He sharply reminds me of my failings—
a privileged young woman oblivious to the street
despite the shield of my empathy.

For months I hear the pitch of a reed,
high and thin,
the last labors of his whistled breath,
excruciating notes on a rising scale.

Painfully I hum his dying song
in the shower, at the stop light,
as I try to sleep. Until all I hear
is the gasping traffic from nearby Broadway.