You had already grown
a little cold,
as I recall,

before you disappeared
years ago --
but frozen?

It makes me think of you
as a lump in some
remote snowfield,

cryogenically preserved
exactly as you were
when I knew you.

I see myself now
climbing the glacier
and digging you out

with a pick-axe,
then hauling you
by sled

back to our dorm room
where, late at night,
we huddled

over Rimbaud
or Keats, an ember
passed between us.

"Nothing new
from nowhere
spirals blue"

began one of our
collaborations,
as if we knew

from thin air
and words. Just as
nothing will come

of my attempt
to bring you back
to life: you've changed

in ways I can't know,
your age, like mine,
doubled. I knew that,

of course, when I called
the alumni office,
before their phrase

sent me off
in another direction.
I wanted simply

to see you again.
I wanted to say
I have good memories

and am sorry
if I was the cause
of any that are not.

I wanted to make you
remember those days,
how we made

that room glow.
I wanted
to thaw you out.