You were sitting beside me on a couch made for two.

You were describing the death of a relative, how she

had gotten a diagnosis of cancer, and needed treatment,

but the treatment didn't work, and it was painful besides,

and she died shortly after. I shook my head gently.

"No, that's not what happened. You had cancer, Jen.

And you died." And you smiled at me, silent, as if

to say, "That's true."

                                       Then I woke up, bewildered

at one in the morning, eleven weeks exactly

since that rainy Saturday. Newly awake, with

the knife of your death alive again in me, 

I sobbed for an hour and keened your blessed name

to angels and saints, to God, to the bedroom ceiling.

And I was grateful. Grateful for this pang of grief. Grateful

for this sharp unforgetting, this remembrance of you,

my cherished friend whose voice was solace and strength, 

whose eyes were my refuge, whose smile was my rest.