Sometimes saying their names
is communication enough.
Friends. The family
with no shared DNA. Names
link us, recite them sometimes
at waking, to know them,
to know they are there.

2.
Write down all their names.
Mix the letters all together.
Play Scrabble with them,
use all the letters, unscramble
the secret messages, call it
kabbalah of friendship,
what you have really learned
from knowing them. Love
in this science is just,
but just a song along the way.

3.
So I wrote down the names
of friends I had to write to
today, little notes mostly,
nothing scary. I wrote
what I had to write, it felt
so strange, as if it all
were done already
on this busy day, as if
they knew already all
that I was about to say,
knew all, but I knew
they needed the words too.

9 October 2022