I have never before looked at obituaries. Such key pages not an age I want to deny or defy, but now in a vague, virtual world of New York Times Guestbooks, I click and click, scouring the world, the web, my widened eyes for others' memories. Of course they entertain records of his street corner, saunter, his (blood-?) orange coat, the cool of cigarettes at his fingertops. The laughters--his, theirs, all streamlined by a leveled city wind.
Maybe this Morisson's rememory. When I try to picture him young, preceding me; when I pull at portraits o his own expeditions, soothing, somehow imagining that if I cannot go forward, I can fall backwards to him. Maybe in my mind I can relive ripe renditions over Korean barbecue or those speckled arms. Maybe if I squint hard enough to forgo bifocals, I will see not stars but steady, other eyes.
