When I awoke, I shook the dream from my head, like shards of dried leaves. After coffee, the thought of him returned and would not go away.

So, I searched for him on the Web and found that he had died peacefully at home a couple of months ago. His death hung there in front of me – hard, cold and irrevocable.

I stared at the page for long minutes remembering our times together. Fleeting moments in one’s life, not enough to mark on the calendar even. Just a few afternoons of playfulness and tender loving. He was a bear of a man – all tight curls and round belly. Laughter flowing out of him, enveloping me like a cloud, sheltering me from the world.

But in the end, his poetry touched me deeper than his sex. And we quickly moved on from our physical entanglements. And then we just moved on. But his poetry stayed in my head and heart. I thought he would always be there, creating and laughing.

It seems we do not live forever, not even laughing poets.