"I miss you", version 2

Not Forever on Earth

for Helen Luster


The perfect shape to drop to the earth
and roll.

Bees in the honeysuckle,
telephone ringing through what you say softly,
the neighbor’s telephone calling somebody other than us.

The bumps of his vertebrae pass under my hand
as he crosses to leap and settle into
the lap you put together for him,
the place in the room he’ll stay.

In the cradle of your hands, fingers nearly
thin as their arms, you rest your glasses
from their focus.

“I don’t know if it’s a poem,” she said.
Or you said. You said.

What happens stays in the shadow it didn’t notice,
what was prevented
as well, as well as, as well as what deliberately
stood up,
meaning to catch light.