This red dust,
a fixed rectangle in the ground.
This red dust,
six feet of mud that hides the coffin of a man—a friend— about my age—with whom I cannot walk, talk, or pass the lonely years that remain for me:
The Band-Aid of life—a community
of misery—sharing and consoling
the one mirror image of ourselves—
the one who knows and gives a damn
that we exist.
God, if you exist, then you have
smashed my silver glass, and
left me standing helpless
and
alone,
to face the days of solitary contemplation, unshared ideas, and my own future plot of red dust.