for D.B.

Just as blank I sink the bank beneath
my grief of never having money. Here in this

chandeliered cotillion-dealing weather
a white round light slight hanging over-

head casts taffy-asking shadows on the
table where I sit, leaving me to wonder if

what you really meant by I can’t stand
to see you was that everyone is always

laughing at the oncologist’s office. It
probably wasn’t, but now that you are

youthful graveside I apply regret. Death I fear
is coming for my friends and my anterior

iliac spine. In the kitchen
my wife is mixing collagen hydrolysate

in a small cracked glass, the bald metal
spoon collapsing through the supplement

and ice, raising our flat-sat cat from a
deep uncharted sleep. Love is a boat

combing over us with shame, and this
is what you told me when I asked

about divorce. I’m not going to do it, you
said, but how else to handle weather? The radio

hum is inaudible. There is no actual air to breathe
and yet our neighbor is still hosting dinner

parties. I am not a thief, but I have taken
time tonight to make a necessary

action. To whom are they going to send it?

Image © Go to Don