When a Friend Dies

When a friend dies

By Marge Piercy

When a friend dies the salmon run no fatter/ The wheat harvest will feed no more bellies./  Nothing is won by endurance but endurance./  A hunger sucks at the mind for gone color/ after the last bronze chrysanthemum is withered by frost./  A hunger drains the day,/  a homely sore gap after a tooth is pulled,/  a red giant gone nova/ an empty place in the sky /sliding down the arch after Orion/ in night as wide as a sleepless staring eye./  When pain and fatigue wrestle fatigue wins./ The eye shuts./  Then the pain rises again at dawn./  At first you can stare at it,/  Then it blinds you.