became your favorite phrase,
especially when you two traveled
the world, strangers showing up
to guide you,

she, driving, preferring to get lost,
to happen upon the happenstance,
you, capable co-pilot, navigating.

This is how it is with best friends,
women who understand each other,
particularly the unspoken bits,
she the extrovert, you the in-.

Who are you now without her?

She who always had things to say,
who bought just-right gifts and wrote
to so many she loved, sending cards
from around the globe.

She who once wrote in a 3 a.m. email
to a niece, “Blank page. I’ll fill it.”

And, of course, she did, with words
that niece still carries, as do you, who
embody the love of this buoyant woman
so many of us followed,

off for a little explore in the after,
perhaps happily lost, delighted
by the next luminous adventure.

•••

for Leilani Hu Yang in memory of her best friend,
Patricia Beach Smith (Aug. 23, 1943–May 13, 2026)