For a friend

---David---

I saw you stand tonight
at a bus-stop, all nonchalant, so straight;
not even proud, just natural,
and the idea of a stick was laughable,
that wheelchair some half-imagined nightmare
no association with that faultless posture.

I heard you speak tonight,
not to me, but regaling some crowd
of friends with your treatise on that album
by the Arctic Monkeys (remember?).
Languid, but by choice,
your speech broken only by your laughter.

I saw you write tonight,
sat hunched at your machine,
your brow a field of furrows - focused, not pained.
And you produced reams,
covered my landscape effortlessly,
impatient for the space to fill with each new passage.

I see you smile, not to chide,
but gently mock my childish fancy.
And maybe it is only fantasy,
but I believe it real -
I saw it tonight.