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Friday, May 15, 2020

Goines On: Guardian angel?

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Goines had years ago reestablished contact electronically with Landi, a friend from when the Goineses still lived in California in the ’80s. Landi now sent him one of those “chain” messages, this one with the subject “Poem Exchange,” which called for him to send a poem to the first email listed.
    Goines recognized that the email belonged to Landi’s ex-husband, Dan, divorcing whom had been for her, she once told Goines, “the most difficult decision I’d ever made, much less, recovered from.”
    Goines knew and liked Dan too. They had worked together even before Landi met either of them, after she came to work at the same lab. Goines and Landi became close friends in the short time that remained before Goines left the lab and moved to North Carolina. He remained unaware that she and Dan were also becoming close, and he was surprised when she informed him that she and Dan had wed.
    Goines had stayed less in touch with Dan than he had with Landi, so he got to be closer in touch with Dan after the wedding than before. Goines liked to think he was sort of their guardian angel.
    He could, of course, just pick some poem he had written and send it to Dan, but he decided that the occasion called for one made to order. It took him three drafts, but he thought he finally had it:

Dear Dan, are you aware of all your fame?
A friend has asked me to address your name
    in a poem to tell you
    something that was ever true:
our love for you continues now the same,
    hers that was a wife’s for you,
    mine that of a friend you knew.
Please say this poem aloud, let it proclaim
her central place within our friendly frame.
Copyright © 2020 by Moristotle

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