Searching for the app on my computer,
I stumble across a photo of you that I
took seven years and eleven days ago

at Burr’s, you having polished off
a turkey sandwich, you in town for
a visit, you upright, on your feet,

the perennial cancer patient, you
called yourself, doing reasonably
well. And you are FaceTiming

with Emma in Washington so she
can say hi to me—the grownup
girl who, as a baby, cried for a solid

month after you brought her into
your life. (Rescued is not too strong
a word.) I’d come to your house

and walk the floor with Emma,
wailing through all manner of young
trauma, so you could go to the store.

That day, years later, we joyfully
reunited, even if you did have to nap
on my couch for a while, and big old

dumb boy cat Diego draped his lanky
orange self along your side as you
slept. I am brought back to the now

as Terri and I try to puzzle
through long-distance connection
gone wonky, not unlike you and Burr’s,

both vanished into mystery. If we
keep at it, we can connect through
one means or another, the living,

the non-living and those in between,
the how-can-this-still-be
of enduring love everpresent,

if we pause long enough to let
our ravaged hearts settle, practice
patience as grace searches

then finds us just where we are,
we thirsty beings, holding out
our nearly empty cups,

ready for love to fill them
to the brim.

•••

(for Terri Wolf, with thanks and love,
and for the late BFF Georgann Turner,
likewise)

•••