[NOTE: Reposting from 2015 to commemorate year 100 of Kurt Vonnegut's birth 11 November 1922]

i found myself sitting in my office
suddenly crying April 11, 2007

having just learned Kurt Vonnegut died

& this lingered for days & days
sudden sweeping tears & anguish

for this man i never met or knew
except for words that poured into print

then more than four years later
i sat in my bed reading his biography

"He died April 11, 2007" its last sentence

& again tears filled my eyes & my chest heaved
although this is the only way biography can end

(i toyed with reading it backward page by page
like Billy Pilgrim watching the movie of war)

but this second time was in the shadow
        of the absence of you

my realization that you were not there
& you would never be there again

although you still walk this earth
having chosen to set me aside for another life

this second crying is selfish & empty
like the refrain of loneliness

running though Vonnegut's life
like a blue thread in a black black cloth

—P.L. Thomas