"The river is gorgeous.
Always is.
I mean, today. Apart from yesterday.
Always is.
One of these days you're going to forget your camera
without realizing it was the last time around."
I cannot account for you or your smile
or your stupid taste in clothes.
I would feel close
for the same way we evaporate
against the pavement,
dripping in August
on the middle spans of the Fort Douglas bridge,
if it were not for the distance
you can sew between
with long practice
you do not talk about head on
no matter how many
drinks in
we will go
come Friday.
For now I am okay.
It is what you are so much more
often than I imagine possible, even
when my luck piles up like
smoke machine soap bubbles
settling to outer space's floor and
the sky trips over itself
and goes tumble drunk
into the setting sun.
That never happens
to me. The wind is high and I want
my welling eyes, locked to the sun,
to catch your glance.
You on the move, again. The air was cold
when we lit out for the trail,
and it is cooler now. The cloud bank
looks like God pulled New York City out of the ground
and chucked it inland,
burning through the atmosphere,
and every minute I spend watching is a
microsecond of its last breath.
Watching you disintegrate
in the distance, I wipe my eye,
duck my shoulders, and
dig my toes.
"Wait up!"
