Mr. O'Hara,

Frank,

King of Bourbon and Trembling Empress of the Island Manhattan,

My darling,

I miss you today.

Can I tell that the only thing pinned up in my drab office cube is your Song? Printed in a tiny typeface so you have to be close (as I am) to read it. I don't do this as hopeful gesture. I know you cannot visit me because you are dead. Your note is an instruction and I keep breathing. It serves.

I think you used to laugh at Allen Ginsberg for keeping so close his hero Walt, for writing poems to him, for crying out to the bearded American wonder when he, Allen, was drunk and awash in pills on your bathroom floor and ruining yet another of your parties. "Walt's dead, Allen," and so on. Cheeky, witty excuses for your sobbing compatriot to your other guests and so on. Banging on the door, "Allen, Allen, ALLEN," and so on. I'm sorry to exult you in a way that would make you laugh.

But, darling, dickhead, my angel, whatever you laid out in front of me, I've yet to learn. I remember when we met. Your sunshine sluttiness wafted in on dust motes. You were somehow filthy and read in a classroom. A classroom creaky and old as sin, under a teacher who would rather write than speak, but in a classroom nonetheless. You were beatific even with a mouth full of cock. Or so I like to imagine. My first salt circle, my first protective spell, I put around me with your words on my tongue. Clunk went the pipes on the third floor and the sirens wailed up 55th street and the police came in to strap her into a wheelchair and I clutched your lunch poems and my tears splashed the phone and in the interval I didn't have time to understand what you were trying to say.

Will you come back, my angel? Climb up to my apartment again? There are no fire escapes like in New York, but hanging out on the back porch has the added sweet irony of standing atop wooden exit structures in a city that burned to the ground not so long ago. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Throw your head back and laugh, won't you? You'll love the internet and I think you'll quite like the music they're making these days and I think I could help you to see the merits of beer.

Please, Frank. Darling, dickhead, my angel.

I miss you.