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.