My Dead Friends

My friends are dead who were

the arches    the pillars of my life 

the structural relief when

the world gave none.

My friends who knew me as I knew them

their bodies folded into the ground or burnt to ash.

If I got on my knees

might I lift my life as a turtle carries her home?  

Who if I cried out would hear me?

My friends—with whom I might have spoken of this—are gone.

Copyright © 2022 by Marie Howe. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 22, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“The poem speaks about Jason Shinder, Tony Hoagland, Lucie Brock-Broido, and Richard McCann: great souls, brilliant writers, deeply beloved friends. The italicized line is from The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke. The first complete line of the first elegy is ‘Who, if I called out, would hear me among the angels’ hierarchies?’”
—Marie Howe