Spiral-bound, the cover is an Impressionistic still life

(white peonies in a vase, apples in a bowl),

the title Addresses in regal gold font.

The copyright date is 2001.

Inside, heavy-weight glossy pages tabbed

with letters of the alphabet

contain sections for names, addresses,

phone, email, and fax

penciled in through the years.

I still consult it at Christmas card time.

Entered there are the dead

(my mother and father, my brother,

two aunts, an old lover, six friends).

Three old lovers, an estranged friend.

My college roommate, former colleagues,

friends of the family, friends of friends.

Someone who led my tour group in Europe.

A few I met only once. Many have unknown fates.

The progression of their lives is traced by x-ed out

addresses, new ones squeezed in the margins.

The writing is smudged, but I recall each one.

Their memory reclaims me,

this whorl of people that for a time

rested on the edges of my life, or deep within.

Each had a place there,

but the phrase “long-lost” comes to mind.

It is not a holy book, but when I open it,

there’s a sense of sitting in an empty cathedral

where amid the hush and the smell of old wood

and snuffed candles, the side chapels hold shadows,

and dim light makes its way

through colored glass.