YOU PASSED JUST HOURS AGO

but because it would pain you
to learn
grief has already begun
to tighten its grip,
I won’t tell you how it goes.
I’m writing, instead,
to let you know
America continues to move
idle & bright
just as you would want it to.
The snapdragons bloom in spite
of the lessening light.
An autumn wind whips
the brambles clear
of yellowjackets & gnats,
drives the mice & woodlice
underground.
If you were here
I would show you how,
eventually, the cold
persuades scores
of common starlings to shed
their iridescent plumage,
& we could watch
as they enter
winter
donning a darker, sharper,
down.

NOTES ON SEROCONVERSION

Am the ghostly confidant.

The once flush

cheek gone dull, gone gaunt.

Am strickenwithin.

A stitch
of strife, a life

measurable in pills

in the sudden fell

of lymphocytes.

Am the acronym, the fever dream,

Was elegant, was sharpsheathed

as the Spanish

olive pit.
Was the wanton limb,

the sleight

of hand, the cheapest

trick. No more.

Am omitted.Hear:

the swollen tongue is wrung

to speech.