88/365 Tim

Blue-eyed Irish is obvious, the easy
talking-joking-connecting-laughing.

Robust communicator now that
we've begun: you're proud like
me of all things Daniels even
though we don't wear the same
genes -- but just what is family?

One end of the country to
the other, we've now got
the longitude covered.

87/365 Amy R

Fair to call you
doppelgaenger with its
connotations of
evil and bad luck?

The simple physical lookalike
we still share
makes me think it.

Fitting the word's German,
given your skill.

Our paths diverged widely, but
perhaps trajectories were set
early, shaped by families
and forces we could/couldn't control.

86/365 Norb

With age and aging,
diminishment:
aches, doctors' visits
reveal the body's history, despite
daily golf-tennis-swimming
activities from last millennium.

Non-body dimming, too,
makes current visits easier:
ready greeting of
no-longer-banished
mother of grandchildren,
apparent quieting of religious conviction
that led to banishment.

Yet
Patriarchal Presence
doesn't diminish, however
it's described.

85/365 Rita

I am now
your age when
we met: you, competent
mother of eight,
holder of all
Borowicz family lore,
source
font
sustainer.

Twenty-six years haven't
faded these qualities:
you feed us
all, protein-rich and
plentiful, conversation about
friends and family
flows from kitchen-table-top
to new-cushioned couch
with easy grace.

84/365 Cindy

Sixth grade, you pressed creases
into painter's pants, jeans,
taught me how to
fold fitted sheets (elastic
corner nested into its partner)

Now mother of five, one Ken's
four Paul's, men/boys I too dated
for a time: is that what best-friends
do sometimes when they're miles
apart and Catholic?

83/365 Matthew

Our email correspondence
exceeded the number of words
you uttered in class: why?

Simple shyness? Complex condescension?
Intermittent perfectionism? Gracious listening?

Your classmates could've benefitted,
you know, from more of your attentive
readings of literature, word-worker as you
are: writer, naturally, and observer,
man who's not forgotten the boy.

82/365 Shahid

Inadequate post/poem this'll be
my impressive Kashmiri friend: flirt
with every boy/girl/man you met,
everyone a potential intimate, a
peer, an amusement, all
legitimate material

for poems you crafted with
astonishing clarity and care,
clever ghazals to induce
giggles, reconstructed myths
to combine now with then.

We all miss you.

81/365 Shannon

Since age 10,
you've been Zoe's best friend
my second-favorite girl
a beauty whose artistic talents shine.

The woman you're becoming -- solid,
smart, ready-for-it-all -- is being
born directly out of the child you have
been: attentive and compassionate,
insightful and sassy.

Need dinner or a sleep-space?
You're always welcome.

80/365 Dave

The young pup's become the
old dog, thicker, wiser, a
husband as well. Lucky Kate.

The cool factor hasn't left, though,
since it was so singular: idiosyncrasy
incarnate since before 1995.

Studying ancient rhetoric with you
made much of grad school
friendly and thoughtful: thanks
to your attentive friendship.

79/365 Amy D

First invitation: Sparkplug setter with springy hair,
you wanted me on your team as a
hitter! Your coaching helped me
learn a five-one, you sneaking
up to set almost-everything.

Second invitation: Jessica and your
commitment ceremony at Split
Rock: hiking, blue-sky sun, poetry,
vows, rock-climbing, strawberries, champagne --
absolute authenticity.

78/365 Cullen

The other "bad girl of the department"
says Carl. But you're way more:
mother-poet-teacher-storyteller-friend
not necessarily in that order.

You have a poet's fingers: individually
they move, slim starfish tentacles, essential
to every story, rounded fingerpads
spread like a gecko, adhere to words
you invent invoke intimate animate.

77/365 Dean

"Class-of-77"
Numbers paired like the
senior-prom couple we were:
pals, really, having dated
in eighth-grade. We spent
spring-summer hanging out --
was it dating?

Shiny thatch of black hair,
black snaps for eyes:
you made me laugh, a lot.
I wrote a poem to your
car, the red Valiant.

76/365 Ann G

Turning 50 won't be a
big deal, will it? You've
performed miracles with ease: taping
ankles, tickling Teresa, coaching basketball,
finishing law school, disciplining hooligans,
advising wayward Auggies, chaperoning "young
adults," organizing Sharpe Curves-- all
the while our secret
weapon: little dribbler is a
base-hit, most of the time.

75/365 Art

Whisker rubs at bedtime burned
our cheeks and chin. But your
cackling gravelly laugh-and-hum
made the ritual worth it.

You named all the Presidents, then their
wives, as an antidote to insomnia, chewed
"snooce" juicily packed in a lip, ate
sardine-peanut butter-onion sandwiches.

You read the paper, did the crossword
while clenching-unclenching an unlit cigar
between quietly clicking dentures, always in
your front-door-facing chair.

You quizzed me on Shakespeare, recited Poe,
played "Oh! Susanna" on the mouth-organ
or fiddle, pulled carrots right out of the garden
and told us "a little dirt won't hurt."

You wrote me monthly in college, tucking a twenty
into the office stationery, scrawling advice and
current-events commentary in ballpoint sharp as
lightning, craggy as Lincoln's face.

This list just a beginning -- impossible to keep
within the 48-word bounds of this exercise (you'd probably
approve of the license) -- a remembrance to a
man born in Bertha as a century began, lived a
full complex life: Grandpa.

74/365 Paul

Once you claimed to be
more androgynous than I.
Also claimed you could shower
completely, even wash-rinse hair,
in under 50 seconds.

Two strange memories of a
boyfriend who wanted a wife
too early. Your talents, though,
did surface: county-judge
isn't a bad gig. Neither was
the guitar.

73/365 Pam W

Roommates for too-brief
stint, late 70s, The College of:
how've 30 years passed?

Your birthday tomorrow just
magnifies the gap in
friendship -- what's it from?

Remember late-night grapefruit peeling?
Inspecting 1203 Charles in dusty light?
Gifting two-year-old Zoe with floppy-eared puppy?

It's a new year, you said this year.

72/365 Kathy M

Kindest person, lover of creatures
wild and beautiful:
gardens, children, art,
flowers, people, god.

St. Clement's moms, seasoned and new,
Oliver nearly four, Stefan's idol:
sharing the duplex,
his worship bloomed.

Generous listener, tender worker, you
connect family and friends:
indelible as your drawings,
transformative as your flowers.

71/365 John P

Anytime I mix yogurt
raisins walnuts honey,
you: teacher of
breakfasts and Derrida,
eager first boyfriend
for this midwestern girl.

Broken leg made Meserole
admonish "take care of him" as if
I'd that role: not exactly, but
you did ride my couch:
introduction to
"the life of the mind."

70/365 Betsy S

Patient friend, still with flare,
emergency-roadside-assistance style,
ready for any outrage.

Steel-strong spine despite MS, which's
after all merely physical not
metaphysical, where you reside.

College friends after thirty years,
many spent not talking at all.
Doesn't matter, does it, when one needs
to visit a foreign state.

69/365 Patrick

Probably only a half-dozen conversations
between us in our cousin-lives,
twenty-one years between beginnings.

I remember yours: pumpkin-fat, beautiful, another
August entrance, second of three Leos.

These days what interests us isn't
identical, but the need to see
farther than the lawn-curb
is
far-reaching, eastern-looking, question-asking --
good conversation.

68/365 Greg

How can I ever
buy another car? You
keep both Saabs running,
Zoe's 1984 "Honey" purchased
from your sister, your
wife's favorite car, dependable
with rust-crumpled wheel wells.

Not only your diagnostic
skill keeps me coming
back: also your friendly-uncle
advice, garden tomatoes, political
analysis, famous baked-bean recipe.

67/365 Paula

Deep pain, deeper fear: to cause
and find both, an accomplishment.

Sure, shouldn't've wanted who
you weren't, what you weren't:

substitutions frequently disappoint: but
they're no excuse for harm,

wounds not-quite physically
detectable, another accomplishment.

Body-memory remains: clench-stomach
west of Calhoun, sharp-panic-lungs

on France, numb-"la-la-la" in
Paris should I return. Damn.

66/365 Shelly

Whip-smart skeptic-scholar
in women's studies 101:

Enrolled on a whim, confident enough
to disagree with me, to listen with respect.

Earned a women-studies minor,
a liberal arts major, (despite original
nursing degree to support Pat-Micah-Calvin)

Outstanding Student, commencement
speaker, full-scholarship-winner to Hamline,
anthropology-honors graduate, published poet.

Now my friend.

65/365 Todd

Is middle-child automatically
forgotten? glossed over? ignored?

Some say yes, yet you fill
the room with your stories,

hilarious renditions of brushes-with-death
embellished with
head-toss, hand-wave, laugh:

keeping audience at bay,
one view of a brother
deeper than he likes to let on.

When'll we know more, Mr.
Girl-in-Every-Port?

64/365 Teresa

After all these years still a
best pal: softball just the
steadiest manifestation of
the instant bond we discovered

our mutual first year
at "The College of," me brand-new,
you a sophomore transfer.

Remember powder-puff I didn't play?
Volleyball practices you crashed?
Late nights in Crandall
or was it Stanton?