Pat

He worked for a year on the floor of a foundry
In Erie Pennsylvania to pay for his future studies
His lungs blackened with soot
After work
At night he made charcoal copies of works
By Rembrandt and Degas

While his own paintings were utterly modern
Abstract made up of grids and parts of unknown machines
Hidden beneath the shapes of other unknowable things
As the trees turn white and pink and blossom
Outside my window
I think of Pat and the girls

I longed for so long ago   I would fall for them
Imagine being with them
But Pat would sleep with them
He was lucky
He was charming
At Madonna Hall   our Honda motorcycles

Sat side by side   I was a freshman
He was a grad student
We drank grapefruit juice
And Jack Daniels and played guitar
We listened to songs he recorded
On a reel-to-reel tape machine

One had the most haunting refrain
Written by a folk singer
Whose songs
Would later make one woman a country superstar
“Dancer  dancer  there on the floor 
Dance until you can dance no more”

The song was about an addict
A stripper and part-time hooker
But we knew the song was about us
And our addiction   Pat did not like illicit drugs
Whiskey was his mistress
Whiskey was his jailer

Once after shooting up speed and coke
I showed him my track marks
The bruises of my infidelity to booze
He shook his head in disbelief and scorn
He often told the story (I believe it to be true)
About meeting Jimi Hendrix

He conned his way backstage and into the dressing room
With a phony press pass
And an expensive camera around his neck
Everyone was stoned
Later during the performance as Jimi’s guitar
Ignited in waves of rage and sorrow

Jimi’s brother nudged Pat
And pointed
Toward the stage
Jimi's face was wet with tears
(His guitar and spirit fused)
Like his paintings  Pat was an enigma

A mystery closed off
Inaccessible
My mind flashes back to the first poem
I shared with him
He liked it and showed it off to everyone
I can't remember all of the lines

But I remember these
“The fire wheeling across the night
Is a siren bleeding into flight”
The poem then describes a body laid out
On the white sheets of a stretcher
It was an omen  a dark prophecy

Eight years later  Pat crashed his motorcycle
Into a tree just off a dirt road in the darkness
He was in a coma 

At Parkland hospital for two weeks 
I came late and missed the funeral Mass
But saw him lowered into the ground 

My sobriety had begun just six weeks before
As the trees turn white and pink and blossom
Outside my window
I think of Pat
I was lucky
I loved Pat