Lew

I had a friend who rolled chapathis perfectly round

an art he learned from an Indian woman

though he was Greek, squatting on the floor

as if that was the requisite posture

And they puffed up too, breathing in, out

How that came of pressing down I've never understood

Just flour and water, knead it, he said

until it feels like your earlobe

He died of AIDS, when men who had it did

but he didn't believe he was going to

He was a musician. Why would God give me this gift, 

he said, only to let me die?

Pianos and chapathis and earlobes

remind me of him