Some time back

I can not pretend to remember
my brother's birthday; I ar-
rived in the family some four
years later. It quickly became
one of the few calendar dates
I would memorize, and antici-
pate always as one of one's
happiest days. I would ignore
it for months, even though the
sound of it would always touch
a nerve, only to welcome its
proximity with particular in-
tensity, and its arrival with
suspended anxiousness. Even 
now, with abundant practice,
it always comes to me with ex-
traordinary sympathy. I notice,
the American JD McClatchy cap-
tures an ironic aspect in this,
while considering friendship --

          Friends are fables for our loneliness.

          If love would live for hope, friendship thrives

          On memory, the friends we "make" made up

          Of old desires for surprise without danger,

          For support without a parent's smarting ruler,

          For a brother's sweaty hand and a train of crumbs.

We extol the details some-

what differently. I do not

feel the hand as sweaty, 

but sometimes damp, changing

places in the bathtub, ris-

ing from the pool, passing a

condensing cocktail. It is

strong, even clenched from

time to time, but primarily

it is calm, as in closing

gratefully upon a golf club.

I prefer not to pronounce

upon that hand in any way, 

because it does not yield.

Friendship certainly does

thrive on memory, but not 

on this, and is made up of

inconsistent subtractions

from brotherhood, whose ev-

every surprise harbors an 

element of danger. This is

the edge we keep between our-

selves, and is ever present.

It changes nothing, even us;

and it changes for nothing.

J.D. McClatchy

The Rest of the Way

  Poems

    dedicated to

    James Merrill

  An Essay on Friendship

    viii  1 - 6

Alfred A. Knopf, 1992©