Years later
your laughter hatches
in my ears as if
there were an egg
that had slowly, miraculously
incubated there
and now a bird
made of your voice
is aflight in my head,
its song your words
it swoops in my silence
and lands on my breath.
I come to it
quietly, quivering,
feed it my attention,
and all is vertigo
the years unhinged,
my own unruly wings
beat to meet you
my friend, my friend.
*written for Karen Chamberlain, whose collection of poems, Ephedra, will be released posthumously this summer.