Gary

(1954-1980)

The grass blown over your eyes,

  I saw, soul-shrivelled

in wind, wet in an early Spring,

  an absent heart

(were it just grass borders taking

  you in!),

 and even a

  slight form of a daughterless dad

(were it just in the way the next

  stone took you out),

  & a very wet sunken place

( Gary , not a tree around for

  you either!)

With some watchful sweeping, alone

  alone all the time, I

saw the step, smile & the veiny brow

  returned,

and very shapeless under my

  feet  a

few leaves yet to brush from the eyes,

                              old friend

Gertrude

When it's out of your hands,  and the cute curled face
   of the cat-saint takes one in hers,

look on a bit & wait. The two or three others, breathless
  and tight-lipped (those cats of hers!)

she won't embrace because they are beyond Nevelles fields,
  and beyond me every bit as much--

these, --I pray !--be always yesterday's poor  inexistent
  twitching under her heat