Alone on the Heath, a purple flower

where there once was dry reedy sand,

you, friend, rode the train to dusty plains

with me–and slept through shifting tides

along California beaches, we two, strangers

to this land, and no less to each other.

I watched your sleeping breast rise and settle,

like the rhythm of our first freedom days, lazed

into adulthood, we seekers of flame, depths

of our soulful hearts, walking poetry, youth

alluring to each other–comrades–and evil too.

I saw you leave that day, through cloudy eyes,

music, sand and weed drifting us alongside

our own nature, me, cautious and calculating,

ready to loosen within my comfortable shoes

and you, a riddle’s answer to what is freer than

free? Air. Who has stolen your breath, my flower?

Your forever frozen face stills time in its place.