NO MORE QUARRELS

				(In Memory of Donald Barthelme)


June 1989 Barthelme (I read some but not all),
cynical, smart, bearded, hawk-eyed, attacked
by a throat cancer, changed tense.
He once said:

	I have been meaning to speak to you,
	I have many pages of notes,
	instructions, quarrels.

Now all we have are the notes
and the instructions, but no more quarrels.

It was good to quarrel with Don.
I know it's ridiculous to say that
when you consider I had, personally,
nothing to gain, either way --
whichever way the argument went.


Copyright © 1996 Raymond Federman