Cancer has chiseled your cheekbones

in Lancashire stone, your hazel eyes

shining out from the silver thread

of road winding through a valley

where the next turn hides from sight.

 

The stars rose when we were young,

vanished when we weren’t looking,

across oceans, cathedrals of stained-glass

mythologies, the echoes of hymns

and meadows. We all die

 

from the moment we are born.

You and I have wasted

not a moment of joy or sorrow,

working at our papers long hours

in the evening’s encroaching dark,

sweeping dust from a thousand books.

 

We have planted trees

that will outlive us, crossed oceans

that will wave us goodbye, seizing

our boat, upending it.

 

And if we cannot leave together,

I will stand on the shore,

watching you pulled out

by the gathering waters. Then

I’ll jump, wondering what

it feels like to go under, wanting

to join you in the darkening tide.