our balm

"...for we are the Lord's joy and delight,

and the Lord is our balm and our life."

[Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love]

Derek in Brooklyn last November, when I flew up for the weekend and stayed with him in his first apartment in NYC and we went to the Guggenheim to see Agnes Martin's retrospective and had a long conversation about politics over pizza and wine at the restaurant down the street. I stayed in a tiny room in the front of the apartment that only fit the twin bed that I slept on but that had this large floor-to-ceiling window which overlooked the street below—basically, my dream.

I see the shape of my nose and eyes reflected in his face, and my questions, doubts, and fears reflected in his own. Our shared introspectiveness sometimes makes us boring conversation-partners, but there is also always this sense that he understands some part of me few (if any) other people have ever understood. These are inadequate words: sometime I will write a poem about him.

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