Gates

I meet him on a corner
in a light that hints at spangles.
I learn he has AIDS.
And yes, he has the gauntness
of the photographs, the greying hair.
‘I’m thinking,’ he says, ‘of throwing
a going-away party.’

A dozen years ago
I might have known his address.
Coming home I pass
an entrance to apartments
where the elderly keep cats,
a fountain dribbles braids
and fallen blooms rust gravel.