I never should have moved
away.  Instead, I might
have kept the
quail safe on the ranch
knowing there’s only
one path.  And once
its gone, any
scheming just brings more
bad dreams.  
Should have sat
every night, hand on the
brandy alexander,
absorbed by the dark
until we cannot tell
each from the other.
And then, when
it’s time to go,
it is really a relief
like they say, a
blessing instead
of regret
that there will never
be anything new again.  
I should
have listened to
the rumbling, like
rockets, shuddering
the deck,
from engines
testing the future.
Given my self up
like a hostage
held by momentum,
looking at
the valley lights
while you put the dinner,
that I hardly ever ate,
on the plate.
It would have made you
love me, for
being there the
night before
your christmas,
letting the kids go away,
so they feel there’s more
than the static unexplained
translucence of living
like we do,
without change,
without complaint.
I don’t know what would
happen once you
were gone
as now I know
that would have been.
Living in
an inherited house, never
making all the mistakes that
were made.
Though without
any idea what would stop
them, without the kind of
whistling threats
like the
cougar and bobcats
warned away by
rifle shots above
their heads.