Tanka for a dead man

I can’t draw, but

I let my pen wander 

across the page

while I think of you, and

the lines flow gracefully

*********

poems

reminiscences

dreams –

I watch myself writing

letters to a dead man

*********

your notebooks –

old lines that linger 

to show me

you not only loved me

you listened and heard

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we quoted

from certain poems 

certain lines –

in ways that made them

secret messages