Each day I long for the metric
trill of a defunct rotary phone
plugged into the void like
on a Twilight Zone episode,
your hyacinth voice
from the other side
saying, Things are good here,
except I really, really miss you!
Don’t our lost loved ones miss
us and the spring peepers,
rain on the roof and
the moon winking or full-eyed?
Or is it all baking bread scents
in heaven, great sex, strolls
on the beach, gazing,
at this blue ball our earth is?
Or is it only us missing them,
their life forces
like wild rivers we forded
on rafts of forever love?
To them, maybe we’re not
even distant memories,
just nagging gnats to swat
at eternity’s endless picnic.
Perhaps the conclusion of life
is the one true answer,
pencils down, books snapped
shut, everyone there gets an A.
We, the living, here, forlorn, merely
gumball machine treasures locked
away in cedar chests our beloved
dead no longer have any use for.
