For Spencer and Tatsuya

Two AM.
He calls while riding his bike home.

The bartender is a good listener, he says.

I listen through wind gusts,
crossing sign beeps,
and car tires hissing on asphalt.

He embraces Grief with peripheral vision

and arrives home just tipsy enough
to remember the recycling.
Bottles clunk
and cans        clash.

In his kitchen
he apologizes for crying
and blowing his nose
into my ears.

His boyfriend of ten years
Is dying from AIDS.

He composes himself a snack.
Gouda gouda gouda, he sings

and I laugh
deep ugly bellows.
He howls at my laughter;
this is the only way through.

Where they live, gay marriage is illegal.
Bed bound in a hospital,
he can’t visit.
He’s not Family, they say.

Standing between miracles
and words we can’t yet say,
how can something Forever be so Fragile?

Our lives overlap, intersect, drift away like bubbles

blown together, not knowing where we’ll land—
our colors pink, purple, gold, and blue hold hands
hold their breath for wishes to come true
and we don’t know if they might pop

or catch a breeze and Rise