the news was bad ...
you were standing in the hallway
beneath the fluorescent lights
close by the one that flickered
in rapid pulsations
that i somehow imagined
emulated the beat of your heart
when the doctor said to you
in his softest voice
that the news was bad
and i guess you didn't see me
standing just inside the door
opened just enough for me to hear
what you heard
and i guess you couldn't know
that when you began to shake
i began to shake too
but not for the same reason
since you suddenly foresaw
a life without me
and i was dreaming of escaping
my pain at last
if memory survives the closing drift
of life's final song
i will remember you
i will remember the cup you used every morning
when we shared coffee on the front porch
and you wondered if the drifting clouds
foretold a day of rain
i will remember the way you slept
so ass-backwards it befuddled me
and i will remember the touch of your hands
over the scars and craters of my body
and i will above all else remember
your love
and what i forget
i will re-imagine
as maybe only a poet can
and i will know everything again
in the winter meadow
an aging horse
stumbles and falls
and in the crash of mortality
the snow billows up around him
cloaking his frosted body
in conclusive veils of white
and if you look hard enough
you will see a young girl
far off in the distance
running to that cold place
her eyes wide with tears
but not tears of rage
and not tears of sorrow
simply tears born of some knowledge
of this finality
of having known his exuberant gallop
beneath her tense thighs
once before
and once again
and now
she hastens to him
to watch his crippled body
rise from the ice and cold
and race towards
the warm light of the sun
and to know the twitch
of his head
and the turning pull of the reins
endlessly again
and then
endlessly again
beneath the fluorescent lights
close by the one that flickered
in rapid pulsations
that i somehow imagined
emulated the beat of your heart
when the doctor said to you
in his softest voice
that the news was bad
and i guess you didn't see me
standing just inside the door
opened just enough for me to hear
what you heard
and i guess you couldn't know
that when you began to shake
i began to shake too
but not for the same reason
since you suddenly foresaw
a life without me
and i was dreaming of escaping
my pain at last
if memory survives the closing drift
of life's final song
i will remember you
i will remember the cup you used every morning
when we shared coffee on the front porch
and you wondered if the drifting clouds
foretold a day of rain
i will remember the way you slept
so ass-backwards it befuddled me
and i will remember the touch of your hands
over the scars and craters of my body
and i will above all else remember
your love
and what i forget
i will re-imagine
as maybe only a poet can
and i will know everything again
in the winter meadow
an aging horse
stumbles and falls
and in the crash of mortality
the snow billows up around him
cloaking his frosted body
in conclusive veils of white
and if you look hard enough
you will see a young girl
far off in the distance
running to that cold place
her eyes wide with tears
but not tears of rage
and not tears of sorrow
simply tears born of some knowledge
of this finality
of having known his exuberant gallop
beneath her tense thighs
once before
and once again
and now
she hastens to him
to watch his crippled body
rise from the ice and cold
and race towards
the warm light of the sun
and to know the twitch
of his head
and the turning pull of the reins
endlessly again
and then
endlessly again
