RIP: Rane Arroyo

ALWAYS

We met in proud Utah and wore opaque
vodka on those vague Sundays for the
unfaithful on your dangling back porch
while dreaming of the very New York

where we entangled for the last time.
Te quiero, you said there, my ears as
paths. You then vanished with a macho
because I had a lover, because we’d

never ride across Russia together in
that frozen train, because listening
to A Chorus Line all those weekends
didn’t teach us the foreign language

of our bodies, because of your career
as a model after years as a military
mannequin, because we never expected
adios to be our actual parting last word.

Because, because, and because. You
turned around to stare at me and I waved
back: I love you too. What an education:
poetry always demands all my ghosts.

Rane Arroyo