The Last Bed We Buy

Grateful not to find myself
disembodied hovering high above
this stark cake of soap, gazing down
laboring to put names to faces, the couple
so familiar, side by side, palms down, still as

miller moths displayed on pins, I drift off  
to the drone of Bill or Ted, rumpled as
a morning after motel king intoning
soft or firm versus memory foam
or pillow top, hypoallergenic …

the last thing I hear before we fall
fast asleep spooning on a plush queen,
not too soft and not too hard, but just right,
satiny raft to ferry us the last stretch of river.
Waving like the Queen we float past the last new

roof over which we will preside, nod in solemn
recognition of our high efficiency gas furnace
apt to burn on years after I’m gone, applaud
politely what jolly well may be a farewell
drive north through the Tunnel of Trees

some biting October afternoon, weep
softly for our old squirrel chaser sawing
soft imprecations to hips gone tender some
blustery April night dog years from now, blow
low Bronx cheers in a fond adieu to life mediated

through screens. Even Bill or Ted knows that grace
lies just ahead around the next oxbow, leaves us
to dream, two dormice cupped in a leaf, rills
and eddies bearing us seaward, buoying us
downstream on softly rolling shoulders.