The text is the first of Eighteen Elegies for Rog. The poet Paul Monette explains his dedication: Roger Horowitz my beloved friend died on 22 October 1986 after nineteen months of fighting the ravages of AIDS. He was fourty-four years old and the happiest man I ever knew. The over-all title comes from Millay's verses: ... many a man is making friends with death even as I speak for lack of love alone.
