I.
I want forty-five years, sixty years, ninety-seven;
I want us to die in some yet unconsidered moment,
when we have an unexpected ceiling cave in on us,
a god make us twenty-two hundred's Baucis and Philemon.
I want again the light on your hair by the river,
gold in the sunset, on your neck, on the river,
and I want your smile, in the glow after sunset,
and I want to have considered every moment.
There will be sometime something I have not thought of.
Over the years, I may have other lovers,
and stay with them until half-light turns well into darkness,
but when I come home, I want you to be with me.
What will I do if, in five years or twenty,
I awaken to find I am trapped in the lands I refuse to consider?
What will I do if forever is over?
II.
Emails Replied To By The Recently Dead
for Skyler
Headers
Dear
To Whom It May Concern
I heard that
the 25th still okay?
Go on and ignore me, I'm only your mother
Dear
I suppose
Chicken Egg Salsa Jane Large Enlarge Bigger
Thinner Thighs Now
Hey?
Are you all right?
LOL you won't believe
Barely Legal
Dear
I heard that
Bodies
. . . I know this is pointless and I'm talking to a void but. . .
. . . she said, anyhow, that. . .
. . . OMG you will not believe this. . .
. . . the restaurant at the corner of 3rd St has good. . .
. . . why are you ignoring me?
. . . I The Widow Miriam Abacha. . .
. . . the cat misses you. . .
. . . I miss you. . .
. . . I bought tickets to. . .
. . . tell me that these rumors are not true. . .
Endings
Call me
See you there
I wish you could answer me
Cable To The Account
expecting you at 9:30
txt me later thnx
sincerely
Sincerely
Yours
I miss you
Damn spammers
Love,
Love,
Love,
Love,
Love
Goodbye.
III.
Highway Driftglass
Bright sunny weekend and talking about nothing and the smell of asphalt
and I do not know if you are over
the first time I see you on the highroad margin.
Whole stories leap behind my eyes when I see you—
and I am sorry for that,
for the cliched narrative,
for the thoughts about the unknowing gratefulness of your afterdays,
for hoping too vaguely and too precisely together.
A dog's bright head to fit the reaching hand,
a friend handmade, as dogs are made by us:
the consequences of the world we planned,
that endless, loving contract, are your dust.
The friend I was with, a woman I loved once,
told me I was lucky not to see you closely,
and I accepted that with the sick grace of freedom.
Indeed I did not want to see you more closely.
Indeed all I wanted from you was the thought of that story,
which had as little to do with you as the color of our car,
which has as much to offer you as the side of the highway.
And you are still there, that summer and after,
and you are still there, although you have scattered,
and you in my unexpected grief for the story half-over,
you in my fear and my anger say this to me:
even the faintest hope of love brings to us
the unforgivable responsibility
to pull in for you. To not go any farther.
And so out of deaths I know yours in particular.