Maria has left the building.

fuck.

christ,

she was only 40.

maria showed me
new york city in fashion,
introduced me to bukowski,
parlayed interesting stories of
heroin and cocaine in NYC 80's,
jukes full of joan jett,
sushi in greenwich village,
all the smokes on the top of the
london double decker,
and the piano in the basement apartment
she held in her parents home.

i remember every talk,
all the exchange of poems and
the musing of where god is hiding and
how everything was going to end up.

then,
several sundays back the music faded.

my brother said that maria
mimicked her hero,
elvis,
and indeed left the building
for the final fucking time.

and as the shock of her early
dismissal sinks in,
i hear the distant din of
our family's once distant relative,
billy joel,
crooning that only the good
die young.

and it's then that the
notion and reality of
the best leaving early,
sets in a new sting
that i'll never get a shine
from her coolness again.

maria is gone.

fuck.

christ.