Fragile Memory

Sometimes, at night,
When I can relax from being someone else,
I call up from my memory
The friends I've left behind,
And wonder if I will ever see them again.

Dear Al,
My link to sanity,
With his wisecracks and jokes,
And the pain I sometimes see shadowed in his eyes;
Stately Verbena, bubbly Tina,
Gooshie and the rest.

But there's one face
That hovers just on the edge of memory;
A face I can never see clearly,
No matter how hard I try.

Who are you?
I feel that I should know you,
That you are somehow important to me.
But the memory,
Fragile as an orchid,
Fades.

So I lie back in my empty bed,
Feeling the fingers of my left hand clench tightly,
As if trying to hold on to something
Infinitely precious.