After Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay

As I walk, you walk with me –
twenty, fifty, more than I can count. 

You form a procession of angels climbing the mountain, your footsteps so loud they drown out
the song of the white-breasted desert lark, your all-too-human sweat competing with sagebrush
fragrance. 

I called you here, you who no longer send me Christmas cards or birthday greetings, whose
phone numbers I forget, whose addresses I’ve erased. 

First-grade drawing companion Nicole M., fellow pilgrim around a cul-de-sac in Cheektowaga,
NY, selling thin mints and peanut butter patties 

each Girl Scout cookie season – here you are now, offering me 
a hand to hold for the slippery ascent.

Pablo, of a midnight walk along the Río de la Plata one silver hot December night, our shoes
filled with sand from the beach of a city that loves the sea – here you are now, showing me
which rocks are safe.

Cecilia, of a dank August stroll along the Mississippi, marching toward Gatsby’s green light –
here you are now, warning that the path narrows ahead.

Ben, of a confused romp down Frenchman Street, both of us strangers in the city of jazz and
colored beads, the drunk leading the drunk past the tap dancer with a baby in his arms –

here you are now, tapping my shoulder and pointing up
to the soaring hawk I missed while counting steps.

You, my brothers, my sisters, my loves – it is not your death I grieve but my own, since I am the
ghost who wants to haunt you as you continue on paths chosen without me.

Maybe not even a very orderly mind can endure the discovery of not being loved. And yet still I
love – anyone, anywhere, as much as I want – which is why I’ve called you here

as I approach the labyrinth’s center, as I ascend sharp rocks to smooth sands above.
And you have come, shadows whose footsteps I follow

as I dream of a mesa where we might rest together to marvel at the same
red and blue mountains. And if I open my eyes and find myself alone,

I will still call out Buen Camino, I will keep shouting love to each one of you,
even if you won’t hear me.