A Heart of Gold

One More Name

For Richard Byrd, June 25, 2023

I wish it were other-

wise, and those ghostly good men would show up

at night, marauding

through my dreams with bloody scabbards, or else

be sitting at the foot of my bed

in flannel shirts, good uncles, smiling as if all is well,

but they only arrive

in daylight, blurred faces, floaters drifting across

my glistening eyes,

no weeping, no tears, not even a manly arm

around my shoulders.

They just appear as a reminder of something or other,

then move into a dark

corner, out of sight, just as each did in life, another

disembodied name

in a lonely male sequence no one knows but me:

Steve Vermilye, Bruce Schenker,

Jim Hillestad, Jim Hazard, Neil Selinger, Marty Rosenblum,

Jon Kotcher, Ken Kogan,

Dennis Niswander, Steve Brown, John Tenuto, sweet

Richard Byrd,

surfer, artist, musician, kindred spirit, shining meteor

crossing the night sky, disappearing

into a watery tunnel, an abyss I still don’t have a name for

—SL, New Paltz, NY, July 2023