..memories…like fallen apples…lose
their sweetness at the bruise
and then decay.
– Philip Larkin, "The North Ship"
Gone from
her desk where news reports claim she collapsed
one morning, missing clues to really what
happened? some stealthy lesioned illness
on gurney to pharmacy? not hospital ward
and get well
cards so faraway we didn't have to worry, e-wonder
how she's doing day to day, tear up on visits;
sparing us that drawn out, draining fear – just braps!
announcing: heart or lungs have stopped
(the other
news
lets you carry on imagining she'd simply paused
out of breath, as on a country hike, say on the trail
to Kaieteur or heaven's caves, gasping Go on,
I'll catch up!) so, stunned, you
grab a death
tie and start back to Georgetown bicycle days
(the talent! desire kept under, futures waving!)
leaving touch slides mobile holds and apps;
leaving NY showers flowers sunbursts on the way;
back paddle over sea
lanes combed & cached in her lighthouse lamps;
for, looking out, she always asked for Horton
Kayume, Seelo – names like faces altered
through marriage and migration; loves sewn
close to her school heart as we scattered for careers.
Well, so much
for bonds of youth preset to expire; passovers to
new times of "Who? Who cares?"
new loyalties forged with lead dog, head scarf, fear; brand
preferences, now tattoos, now same sex;
now the days are over.
Look out, old friends,
for notices in newspapers, someone halting
bicycle joys on streets of your youth; that lone faith keeper
still there; ambassador at post through a breezy despair.
And check the letter columns.
With luck
a fellow worker, close pall bearer, will swear
&
#0160; such constant goodness never comes back. Not a whiff, though,
from a city stink with drains clogged leaves of stricken spreadsheet sores;
villages stuck in rigor mortise (dwarfed homes on Victoria's stilts)
and the mounds of wilderness you pass to Joy's burial place.
-W.W.
she lives of herself; she is
balance embodied, that's all:
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 