And that’s it: the ear attuned
to silences, a locked canal
leading to the throat. Sore,
I try to speak, it just gets
worse. But also, sometimes, soaring—
a vision of when the love was new,
dropped in my path. Late
to school, unable to walk
past a broken bird; looking
for a shoebox, anything
to keep alive what’s going
to dwindle to oblivion. And I
was happy. It’s the original
pathetic fallacy. Wings break;
birds die; a decade later
I’m waking up to I’d do you
in a houseboat. Or have you do me—
Change of subject. He wishes
he could be funny
in the deep way, not so foolish,
and I think he is; he makes
me laugh. Saddest thing in the world,
to fail to laugh
when someone you love
thinks a joke is really funny. Sad,
but funny, like falling out of the boat
that was going to take us
back. Was going to call, forgot.
Didn’t want to? Memory recalls
the phone quiet, recalls
the inflamed throat. Who knows
what I’d have said? Instead,
I kept myself from telling him
the saddest funny thing I read today,
a doctor repeating a man’s last words:
not I love you or a name on his lips
but a rasp, “Oh fuck, oh fuck.”
My love, today I looked for houseboats,
which can float or move slowly
downriver via canals. They can go far
but not very fast; most canals
don’t get that deep. You’ll get much further
flying, which we’d have to do
if we want to see each other
and there’s nowhere left
to land: it’s one deep thing
we never have to say. How we both love
water, though; running, sluicing,
shining; even brine. Once we needed it
so badly, sitting in the car
after years apart, we had to stop
and I drank
that big gulp in one long swallow
and still wanted more.