Sitting in darkness
I drag and drop your small obituary photo
onto the glowing screen
then click and zoom
click and zoom
again and again
over and over
watching your smile enlarge
and disappear into a crazy quilt of half-inch pixels
pink, yellow and brown squares
revealing nothing,
until, thank god,
I can no longer
see you.
I close my eyes and there we are,
I nineteen, you twenty-two,
lying side by side
on the grassy knoll back of campus
eating the first bread I ever baked
and you say, taking my hand,
'we will be alright'
and your voice echoes
‘be alright’
‘be alright’
again and again
over and over
fading across the empty valley
between hope and what’s real,
until, thank god,
I can no longer
hear you.
I open my eyes
and grit my teeth
with the quick anger
of remembered betrayal,
about how we’d stumble
back to our tiny rooms,
again and again,
over and over,
in the dim morning hour of the wolf,
teetering along an unknown edge,
tightrope walking across premature sorrows,
you fearing
a young death
yet longing for the end,
dragging me close behind you.
Now fifty years gone,
I lean in close
whispering to the screen,
‘Fool, wasteful fool!’
until, thank god,
I can no longer
feel you.
No.
Let it go. It’s time.
breath
in,
breathe
out,
again and again
slowly in
slower out
over and over…
We met too soon
instead of now
when we might hold one another
with wisdom and understanding.
I can almost see you,
hear you
feel you
and
even love you,
from this safe distance
with you now buried,
tucked away
inside your handsome
but small
obituary
photo.