holidays

a long, late night phone conversation with a beloved friend - comfort, disclosure, laughter; half-asleep as i said goodbye. a faulty alarm clock and an ambling, all-stops train to the subdued and melancholy funeral of a friend's brother (a black-and-white picture of a handsome young man with a cheeky half-smile and sad eyes / my friend standing outside the church, the memory of his brother engraved in the shape of his face, and temporarily tracing his cheeks in tears). thinking. crumpled jackets and crushed tees hung on purple coat-hangers, dirty clothes piled, clean clothes pegged under the winter sun. writing and cutting and gluing. a dessert party with like-minded, rugged-up friends, frenzied, light-hearted conversations tracking our little circle, back and forth and across and over, comments received in snippets, comically jumbled.