Dear Bob,

The mountain thinks it’s the same

without you but it’s wrong. Maybe

the same stars whisking themselves

further off, the darker the brighter,

same chamomile crushed underfoot

but the little, wiry dog we loved

has preceded us into paradise, not

that I expect to join her even though

my own crappy heart’s worse, running’s

out but I may be finally learning how

to sit in a chair. I still don’t know

what to call the good morning bird

although whatever word’d be no truer

than manzanita. I think namelessness

has a crush on me, on how clean

I keep my room, the usual stunned

ruckus of wake up. But it’s a different

moon, different woman on the hotel balcony

yet the same kinda scary, vacant stare,

caryatid foreseeing what? Before

turning back to the customary, immaculate

vacation squalor inside. The cash machine

still says “enter to exit” but there’s

more water in the creek than I’ve ever seen,

the brighter the darker, in that first dream

there was none.