With Love

“With Love”

               for Liam

You almost died

during RuPaul’s Drag Race

on a frigid Friday

night in Boston.

The same cancer

that killed my father

threatens your, life, too

and all I could picture

was my childhood body

rushing, love-fueled,

straight towards

a hospital bed,

stark-white 1980's health

care that left him wired

and tubed in a way

that paralyzed my brothers

lingering in the doorway.

But I wasn't scared.

I ran right in.

I found out

it was time to say

goodbye to you

while I sat

at a brightly lit restaurant

in Cleveland Heights

where I was dipping 

my kibbie into its sauce.

I didn't know

what to do with my hands

or my face or my voice,

after that brief phone call

where I'd had the fortune

to turn to my friend, someone

who'd met you

only once, and she let out

a gasp when I shared

this grave news.

Context, though,

is everything, and what

we'd been discussing

was pre-birth planning

and souls and the awesome

power of everlasting love,

the pillars and powers

of all that exists exponentially,

far beyond what our human

brains can begin

to comprehend.

You and I,

we had our moments,

our evens and odds,

our tough disputes.

Your partner is the one

who partnered us,

who brought us into

each other's lives

and left us there

to figure it out

while he mixed cocktails

and set out the snacks

on Drag Race nights

for so many years.

I'll always think of you

snugged on the couch

in my old office, piled

with yoginis guzzling

whiskey in cheap glass

carafes.  A singalong

begins, you, our pied piper,

belting out of the classic

I will always love you

while your partner sulked

in a chair outside the door,

impatiently ready to leave

this party you and I

had only just begun.

I'll always think of you

with love.

Set free now

from the pain

of your human body,

attacked by the very same

malignancy that took my father's life,

I spontaneously wrap

my arms tight around my body,

invisible-you I sense in this

embrace as I say out loud,

Thank you, you are loved.

It's quiet here, six hundred

fifty-odd miles away

from where you will draw

your last breath.

I hear that, though,

that final sigh.

I see it pulse

through this

white light --

2/4/2023