DEAD RECKONING
Now that death has entered you, sooner than I think it will
arrive in me, I fear to look into your eyes and see the sun
growing dimmer there. The space around my hands, unable to
contain the stars, begins to fail. Who would have thought that not the air
alone but space itself would die, the planets disappearing and
the seasons smaller? Between us on a table flowers floated in
a bowl. Flowers, you said, are flowers forever, each coming back
within the next. You gazed into the bowl and looked away, and when
your eyes returned, I looked to see in each the image of a rose
reflecting on mortality. There must be moments when we are
uncertain where we are, the sun beyond our measure, being seen,
after it is gone, mirage of roses passing through the sky.
Now that death has entered you, sooner than I think it will
arrive in me, I fear to look into your eyes and see the sun
growing dimmer there. The space around my hands, unable to
contain the stars, begins to fail. Who would have thought that not the air
alone but space itself would die, the planets disappearing and
the seasons smaller? Between us on a table flowers floated in
a bowl. Flowers, you said, are flowers forever, each coming back
within the next. You gazed into the bowl and looked away, and when
your eyes returned, I looked to see in each the image of a rose
reflecting on mortality. There must be moments when we are
uncertain where we are, the sun beyond our measure, being seen,
after it is gone, mirage of roses passing through the sky.