I wanted to write you a letter, John,
thanking for Love and Fame.
You were there. Much.
I liked you, your friend Henry,
your seriously playful syntax,
your modest excesses,
your extroverted introspection,
full face forward, inside out.
Now I read that you are dead,
“Walking Into the River.”
I cannot reach you,
the thanks trapped in my mouth.
A package of seeds
in a stuck drawer.
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Written in the library of New Trier High School, 4:00 a.m. May 7, 1972. The poet John Berryman jumped to his death off a bridge in Minneapolis, on January 7, 1972. I had just begun reading Berryman, having discovered his book Love and Fame in the school library were I worked as a night watchman on weekends. “Walking Into the River” is a poem published in his book Delusions, Etc.”