I can imagine the view
from apartments in the sky,
overlooking Hollywood Boulevard,
the gilded ruin of wasting-away
souls laying claim to creativity.

I've kept your letters,
to the last,
even the Valentine-gram
from 1991.

You drew a happy face on
the pink construction paper
carelessly folded in uneven quarters,
with tiny spiral curves
drafted in erasable black ink
representing your hair. And then your signature,
an extravagant collection of serifs and wide arcs.

You've moved
ahead without me
uttering a word of dissuasion,
but these scraps of correspondence,
usually the written equivalent of
idle chatter, some return-addressed
for Hollywood Boulevard,
I've retained so meaninglessly
and memorized
like scripture.

Timothy A. Clark
1997