Reading Lorca at the Joan Didion Memorial, St. John the Divine

To take the wrong road is to arrive
at the snow. It is white, cold

light passing through the stained glass
like cracks of azure in procession.

Sitting last row in the theater
of the real, all I can think about is the memorial

pamphlets being handed out in the back
of the cathedral, you know the ones

with Joan’s picture in black and white
that I wasn’t given. Measuring everything

by longing, my gaze slithers through the three
naves, trying to grasp

how it happened exactly,
that we are here, next to each other

this way, so carelessly close.