now,
with a quick second to look
back,
he takes the book
from the shelf,
leafs through to the
page she signed,
and re-reads the first paragraph
on the page

which
seems now to be
meaningless (not that
the words have lost
coherence, but that context
having changed their charge
has lessened to being
no more than a tingle) and
he closes the book
quickly,

replaces it
so that only
a drag-trail through
the months-old dust
is there to testify

to this second of
suddenly soured nostalgia.

The storm freed you.

It left the house and car destroyed;
soon enough, you had to leave the job as well.

Then, unexpected as a late love
when you’d abandoned the thought
of such a thing,
came two fat insurance checks
to replace the wreckage,
and a wild idea: sell the lot,
get a decent but cheaper replacement car
and clear out to live on what was left
for as far along the road as you could go,
running over everything wrong
in your life,
pressing the gas pedal
down on its head.

People dream of lottery tickets
and inhertances.  People dream
of lawsuits and windfalls.  You
never bothered to dream,
yet there you were — modestly rich,
clean and clear with nothing
to hold you.  Every bill paid, every string
cut, all as unexpected as a late love —
and like a late love, unlikely to be anything
but a last chance.

The last postcard came six months ago,
from Omaha.  “Thinking of you all
back there,” is all it said.  Back here,
all we think about
is you.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations