Bruce Alford
Memoriam for Jake Adam York

I want mute ears to hear for good gone

Spread full tilt the stars

Bring out rare blossoms

You make us poems

shifting regret

with sideways yearnings

Our lives go off-handedly

longing for yesterday

you talk about your head

cleaner than unmossed stone

You make me laugh

and live

  our words

grow together

The sun goes down

The line ends with a whisper

as a silent cloud

and the turn holds us

yet a little while.