I like to imagine Mary Oliver and David Berman
Strolling side-by-side,
Palms grazing the plumes of yarrow feathering the byways of Poet Heaven.

They died less than 8 months apart, lymphoma and mental illness respectively.

The inhabitants moon over Death incessantly there in Poet Heaven,
But you already knew that.
You know poetry.

I like to imagine Mary Oliver and David Berman drinking strawberry daiquiris and smoking in companionable silence,
Enjoying their unlikelihood in the sweet midday glow of Central Park.
Still dead of course,
Unnoticed among the rabble.
What is poetry without the living? We yearn for blood and contrast.

Buying some art from a guy who is also selling bootleg DVDs;
Throwing birdseed to the crosseyed pigeons;
Smoking cigarettes and letting the soft animals of their bodies love what they love,
Free from consequence and commodification,
Free from the every day clamor of the train station.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this, he might say.
But it did, she might reply,
Which is all you can give sometimes when you’re a steward of the truth.