A Poet’s Death
The first time we talked was in the rooftop
cafeteria at Cal State Northridge.
Misplaced poets, we sat amidst a crop
of clean-cut freshmen while, round the college,
smog-smudged San Fernando Valley beckoned,
panoramic and bland. I’ d just returned
from my debauched year up north — sad, drunken
sex at the baths, in dark parks. You still yearned
for St. David’ s, your stint as a foreign
exchange student. In Wales, something fearless
woke you up: you drank, wrote, fucked. Now, stuck in