brother-friend
master statistician
night creature
i still have questions
which you’d have answered
in a flash of a breath’s microsecond
how many humble hours
magnificent minutes
in your tall, short life?
how many lived moments
did you love?
(and did you love?)
knowing i’ll never know
that i’ll need to let go
i’m still asking
as your sister-friend
on this lovely morning
in these 20 lines
in these 72 words—
427 characters if we include
the empty spaces
B, a close friend of my then-husband, passed away unexpectedly in 2020. He was a statistician by profession, with an ever-computing mind. I didn’t know him well or for very long, and I was surprised by how much his death affected me. He wasn’t always comfortable socially, but he was incredibly loyal to me, in that sweet way some men can be with the woman of their great friend.
Another friend of ours passed away in 2022. U was also a brother-friend and a great inspiration. I haven’t been able to write about him.
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