Another Elegy ["This is what our dying looks…

This is what our dying looks like.

You believe in the sun. I believe

I can't love you. Always be closing,

Said our favorite professor before

He let the gun go off in his mouth.

I turned 29 the way any man turns

In his sleep, unaware of the earth

Moving beneath him, its plates in

Their places, a dated disagreement.

Let's fight it out, baby. You have

Only so long left—a man turning

In his sleep—so I take a picture.

I won't look at it, of course. It's

His bad side, his Mr. Hyde, the hole

In a husband's head, the O

Of his wife's mouth. Every night,

I take a pill. Miss one, and I'm gone.

Miss two, and we're through. Hotels

Bore me, unless I get a mountain view,

A room in which my cell won't work,

And there's nothing to do but see

The sun go down into the ground

That cradles us as any coffin can.

Source: The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press, 2014)