I raise my glass
to you, dear woman
across the horizon
out where the water rises;
here's to all the years
I've spent waiting,
to all the miles I made
myself across, a life
spent wandering in haste,
wondering just how
your salt would taste.

Why do you feel the need to apologize for taking up space in the world?

Stop saying you are sorry

For existing

For living

For being human

My last memory of you,
is watching you walk through a crowd,
not realizing who you were,

Having lost you momentarily,
thinking snidely,
as I watched you,
bogart your way through the herd,
"Why is this old man in such a hurry?"

Then I recognized the hat,
That shaggy hair,
once spun cornsilk,
now grayer than I'd realized.

The trousers,
baggy on your thin frame,
less than thin,
gaunt.

I couldn't shake,
The way your skin hung,
like parchment on jagged bone.

Frail...
The word ricocheted in my mind,
like a rogue pinball...

You had been under the weather.
Dimly,
I understood that.

There had been a battery,
of tests.
A barrage of them,

But for every differential diagnosis,
came a negative finding.
There was and all clear,
nothing to see here,
kind of trend.

Of course it was so.
You were indestructible,
A legend,
A mythical being,

A titanium Phoenix,
rising ever from the ash,
leaving steely slide guitar riffs,
and cold fire in your wake.

I never saw you again after that day,
my birthday.
The next week,
I forgot to call.
Father's Day.

Not because I hadn't thought of it,
The time just always gets past me.
It haunts me still.

We made plans later,
I would make it up to you.
Grilled steaks on the rooftop deck.

You were even on your way,
to reconciling with Dave,
making amends at long last.
The ship was righting itself.

I slept soundly that night.
Groggilly ignored my phone,
in the morning,
But it just kept ringing.

Reaching in the early light,
clumsily,
to check the time,
I thought,

"There had better be something wrong..."

I dreamt of you last night.
I can still envision your smile,
that bright mural,
the colorful decor,

The Korean couple,
aging bohemians,
living vicariously through us,
as we toured their home.

You told me I was
the love of your life.
We kissed,
and it was electric.

As though our lips were
two filaments,
our souls conduit,

We created,
and conducted,
a shared,
essential spark,

I loved you completely,
in that moment,
knew you,
felt you,
completely.

In that small eternity,
I experienced happiness,
as I had never done
before,

As though a lens,
has focused,
I now understood,
what others felt,

When they used words,
like contentment,
and fulfillment,
and bilss.

For a brief space,
of subconscious delight,
I forgot what it was like,
to be hollow,

And existed,
for a pause of breath,
in the warm overflow,
of your embrace.

It's a long,
            slow,
                languid sky.

Clouds incinerating,
in a smouldering heat,
on the horizon,

The last traces,
of afternoon light,
beseiged by sunset.

Your memory,
is a wild specter,
casting firefly trickery,
into the settling twilight.

And the city rolls,
past itself,
projected on the mirrored face,
of a glass building.

I am a lonely Alice.
Somewhere on a checkered green,
in that looking glass world,
you are having tea parties,
without me.

Coaxing dream,
with your Red Queen,
and Cheshire grin.

Sending it flailing,
weightless,
through smoke rings,
like dogs through hoops -
rabbit holes.

It's a long,
           slow,
               languid sky.

Darkness falls,
like the weight of years,
that pass as quickly,
as the peak,
of a dreaming red sunset.

Their memory,
is a great humid ghost,
condensing itself,
the way dampness and heat,
press the air.

Tomorrow promises rain.
I will ****** my face,
to the mirage sky,
and its clouds,
will weep.

Salty,
watercolor tears,
blurring the reflection,
of my absence,
in your looking glass world.