Elegy with a Long-Distance Friendship

my friend     who I love     calls me 
and asks how     I’m doing     and later 
in the call     again     how     I’m doing     
and he means     my head     how I told him    

I wanted to kill myself     I had the luxury     
of a friend to tell this to     and he sat     quiet     
on the line     as I filled the silence     with a joke 
about death     I don’t know how     to speak 

of dying     without a bit of laughter     
I love my friend who calls     and gives me  
his love     he is states away     I wish 
he was     here     but when I was     at the end 

when I was there alone     in those shadows    
I knew     he was there     with me

WILLIAM FARGASON

William Fargason is the author of Velvet (Northwestern University Press, 2024) and Love Song to the Demon-Possessed Pigs of Gadara (University of Iowa Press, 2020). His poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Narrative, and elsewhere. He lives with himself in College Park, Maryland.