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At the exhibition

It’s as simple as that, although as must be clear

to us all by now that love and simple are unrelated.

And don’t we all love Dave anyway. Isn’t that the point of Dave.

You love Dave. You claim Dave as your own, each of us,

looking slyly at the others, thinking, no, I love Dave

more than you love Dave. I understand Dave.

Dave is mine. I have Dave. I know Dave.

And then we move on with this glow,

glued up with pieces of Dave.

Though when you look back you see Dave

seeing you — and it’s Dave who loves you, has you.

And that glow, well — he sees you, he knows you.

He loves you.

My god. He loves you as others never have

and that finally-being-recognised is Dave:

pasta in a broth so light the taste lingers

for decades in a white bowl.

How we shared our heart’s dark corners.

How we could change the world. The world, our world,

hearts and hearts everywhere.

Even the manager at his new cafe loves him now.

She has the look. I love Dave. He knows me, I know him. You.

You watch out with Dave. My Dave. Look around.

Why are we here? Why are we happy? Dave.

Why are we generous and tolerant and smart? Dave. We are all

Dave extensions, connected by Dave who is a chooser of fine spaces.

Gramsci, the LRB. Those deco buildings on Courtenay Place.

Pauatahanui, Maunganui o te Ao. In Newtown, in Brougham Street.

The art. The ideas. The art. The missed deadlines —

deadlines what kind of pish-pash is that. The drunkards, the drug takers —

we were all okay with Dave. The loveless loved. The jokes.

A maker of fine spaces. We’re here again aren’t we.

And where’s Dave — it’s not him. It is him. We can fly now, if we must.