I’ve made it my job to think about death.
Outside, in the chill darkness.
Stars show up in fits and starts as if
we’re to decode them. Maybe death
comes on like that: lit, pulsing.
Or like wind in the hedgerow
touching every needle, setting the cypress
in motion, but really nothing.
Since you arrived, gave me the news,
I’ve been here on the headland,
watching black waves. Slip away, surge.
Maybe it’s a return. Maybe fluid.
Summertime, at night, by the sea,
it doesn’t seem that frightening.
You’re inside, back at the house,
taking an infusion of friends’ voices.
I’ve made it my job to think about death.
Yours, to practice staying alive.