TONY VAUGHAN

they knew you better than I did most of them in their fine Nile they watch the fog rising and sit in the corner of the street the current flows quickly by I snag some of the wood as it drifts thinking I always wanted to walk with you past the ruins of Lord Byron and touch the red bird you painted and read the lines you wrote beginning with the last word until the door opens for all of us as the river flows as the door swings open I guess maybe what I knew of you you gave me many times in poetry and art sweet awful death I fear your arms I love your river rising the barges and rafts the water scum	and dramatic gestures we all fling I loved your yellow and your blue not to mention a wreath of trees to plant along the banks and how you sold your work in Kerouac Alley with the other river people or sang on the sidewalk of our cafe your thin eyes I capture the delicate strings of a guitar you wrote and strummed and painted all those decades or holding my hand and saying thank you at the library tribute in your honor when I joined others reading your poems you still had a warm and intense grip I guess it is easy to remember how only one time we sail alone ©Neeli Cherkovski	The Red Swan by Tony Vaughan
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