Prague
The day I learned my wife was dying
I told myself if anyone said, Well, she had
a good life, I’d punch him in the nose.
How much life represents a good life?
Maybe a hundred years, which would
give us nearly forty more to visit Oslo
and take the train to Vladivostok,
learn German to read Thomas Mann
in the original. Even more baseball games,
more days at the beach and the baking
of more walnut cakes for family birthdays.
How much time is enough time? How much
is needed for all these unspent kisses,
those slow walks along cobbled streets?
Stephen Dobyns, "Prague" from The Day’s Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech. Copyright © 2016 by Stephen Dobyns. Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org.
Source: The Day’s Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2016)