The Boston Hills
Going back and forth to Buffalo that fall and winter,
I counted twenty-three days in a row
during November and December
when the sun didn’t shine—
not for a single second—
the weather cloudy and lowering skies
to spit out dirty ice and snow
as the Buffalo Evening News quoted John Barth
who said it’s perfect weather
for a writer of Gothic novels.
In early November,
visiting friends as we did often on the weekend,
we had a call that
Diana had been taken to the hospital.
When I called Children’s Hospital,
the nurses said they did not have a patient named Diana
that we needed to call her doctor.
We sat together with friends.
I kept calling and calling,
trying to locate Diana in her hospital room then
—finally—
someone put her doctor on the phone
oh Mr. Searl I’m so sorry …
Diana died earlier this morning.