When she dies, it's no longer sorrow.
It's deeper, more tragic than Colorado River midnight fog,
where her words linger an unfinished fantasy.

You'll awake one busy morning,
still on the edge of some great discovery,
and pull the blanket back over your head,
desperately trying to remember what made life worth dreaming;
but her face escapes into a random someone else
as the Muppets enter and start the Christmas carols,
and you're stuck in a testing center, translating vergessen,
wondering whatever happened to those playoff-bound Houston Oilers.

She'll return only on special occasions,
when the cloud cover never quite clears enough
to see Venus eclipse Mars;
or when you're staring at the second hand and The Atlantic
for three hours on Friday night at Barnes and Noble,
wondering where she hangs out nowadays;
or when you die, not in the arms of Marius,
but in the stretcher, where some guy in white
asks you to focus at his finger, and repeats and repeats,
"Can you remember your name?"

All you can do is cry and hope the flowers really grow.