For a week after the funeral,
I ate in every restaurant he loved in the city.

Every evening, I walked
from each ethnic meal into hours.

I envisioned his studio apartment’s shelves
bowed under the weight—

each book
the body of a man’s life.

Tell me which volume to pull down and open,
       I asked his ghost.

The black night was slick with rain, and brilliant.
Like the old days in his studio, I sat

cross-legged on my own floor at home
and read.