When did more people weep for Johnny Carson:
during the last show or the emphysema’s
follow-up act? Tonight, how many weep?
Tonight he owns the time slot of my sleep.
I dream the L.A. leisure suit; I dream his
prairie-boy charm as he invites the stars in—

really a pageant of my own lost friends
restored: and here’s Johnny, and here they are,
as I sit hidden in the studio rafters.
Lavaliers catch and swell their separate laughters.
The host bends at his desk as at a bar
to ask how far the heart’s career extends—

and in mid-sentence, starts to hack and cough
till the sound cuts out and the lights wink off.