There are three. To: Steve, From: Me.
To: Steve Who Is Dying, From: Me Who Is Not.

There were others. Letters of needs-be-said and consolation;
fervent, well-meant. Shells of heartful intent
which were, yet,
hollow and impotent.

I’ve a friend who smokes a pipe and does
not Facebook.
He writes letters, too, and sends poems and skewed
photocopies of articles.
And these poems I sent to Steve. One each day, curated
and copied by hand.

(Electrons have no place in conversations with dying friends.)

What better could I have done than share
wisdom distilled through poets and friendship?
To spare him
the fumbling, thick-fingered ramble
of an inarticulate friend and get right
to the inarticulate point?

I prepared the envelopes in advance of a trip,
so I would remember and be
faithful. To flow as his life ebbed.

His death came as I left. The envelopes
empty,
addressed and stamped,
Forever never reaching him.

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And pockets. Lots of pockets.

I’m not ill-prepared in my bathrobe; just exploring a different terrain. A bathrobe, because stumbling in the dark for pants will wake her. Slipperless feet so that I can follow the contours of the carpet with my toes, in the dark. Or possibly because I’ve misplaced my slippers. A mug of coffee to keep my senses warm and alert.

My bathrobe has two pockets. I don’t know what they’re for.

The stairs lead downward, walls low and close. The evidence is sparse: faint outlines of shoe prints, scuff marks, crumbs clinging to the soles of my feet. They were here, quick and raucous.

There is an eyeball on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Disturbing in any light, and unexpected. I give it a scientific nudge with my toe, and it glows. Red, blue, green, red, blue, green. It fades, leaving a purple globe in my vision. Who were they, to have this? And to what purpose?

The pupil wobbles and settles. It does not follow.

Their civilization is spread across the floor, shattered. Or perhaps incomplete. Small, colorful bits of plastic are arranged in familiar shapes. I see buildings and vehicles with wheels and wings, and tiny figures scaled to use them. A village? A city? The design is haphazard, as though it hadn’t been planned, but discovered.

I see fluorescent domes, and devices that could be guns or drills or experimental probes. Or death rays. A military installation? This appears to be an airstrip, or landing pad. The headless bodies surrounded by wreckage certainly indicate a conflict.

I can’t explain the tentacles.

I do know there was laughter. Sudden bursts of joy punctuating the soft murmur of voices. There was discussion, and the rising inflection of questions. Shuffling and thumping, and an occasional scuffle. A companionable society that smelled strongly of feet.

But I can’t know the details; haven’t known for a while. I used to know everything. When he woke and slept, what he ate and when. What he wore, and what he learned. Who was there, what they said, what they did. What the tentacles were for.

He didn’t belong to me, but had been placed within my care. He needed.

Now there are swaths of hidden time. Where I am not, and so cannot see. A society to which I had belonged, but has grown beyond my grasp. Vast, and bright, and wonderful.

All I have are clues. Fading trails and bread crumbs, shards covered in dust. Remnants of history clouded by free will and perpetual motion. My knees crack and my joints ache. Sometimes I am burned.

I don’t have enough pockets.

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By Norman McCaig

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.

He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practising for the future

when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.

From The Poems of Norman MacCaig

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Its edge was blurred by shadow; a stray fingertip caught in frame. The darkness spread, waxing toward eclipse as the moon slid into earth’s shadow. It swelled, quiet and inevitable, swallowing craters and valleys. Its progress was determined, imperceptable save a steady feeling of expanding loss; a sense of darkness more complete than the moment before.

I grinned.

I slipped through the door and heard my wife shift and settle in our bed. The pretense of stealth lasted until I reached my son’s room, and carefully-but-not opened his door. I unmistakenly bumped into his desk and stumbled over books and shoes, making as much noise as I unintentionally could. He stirred.

I reached for his shoulder and shook. ‘Ian,’ I whispered. ‘Ian.’

His head leapt from the pillow. He raised himself and looked at me, waiting for me to finish my thought, as if it weren’t two in the morning. ‘I need to show you something.’ He nodded and fell from the covers. No questions, no complaints.

I led him, plodding, to the window. We knelt on the velvet plush of the hippopotomus wedged against the wall. I tugged open the shade, tapped an angled finger on the glass, toward the ruddy moonrise. His eyes followed my hand, my fingertip. ‘Look.’

Sleep was banished, cast away and out. ‘Whaah…’, he breathed. Fingers tightened on my shoulder.

His face was bewondered; heart pulled along paths mine had forgotten. Lost. ‘Do you want to watch?’

He wobbled as he stood, balanced on the hippo’s face. ‘Yeah.’ Whispered but certain. He found one slipper beneath the desk, another between bed and bookcase. The moon rose higher. We padded down the hallway and stairs, to the front door.

The night was cold. Colder, than it should have been in April. Winter returned, having forgotten something in its rush to leave, long after it had overstayed its welcome. I sat on the chilled concrete of the porch, wrapped in my robe in a blanket without my socks.

He sat on my lap; my arm around his waist, his slippers brushing the top of my feet. I pulled the blanket over our heads, and bitter air slithered through the breach to curl around my ankles. We turned our faces toward the sky, and watched.

The moon was higher, and lesser. The shadows had deepened, a consuming rust spread along the lunar edge. There was a pressured silence. An incongruity. A father and son watching in isolation as a four-billion-year-old stone captured the light and warmth of a four-billion-year-old furnace.

And we talked, hushed. About the moon in its expanding orbit. About the sun, and the earth coming between them. About all the sunrises and sunsets blazing across 238,000 miles to fall on the surface of the moon, and turn it red. About the work of His fingers, and how He is mindful of us.

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By Richard Jones

It’s so late I could cut my lights
and drive the next fifty miles
of empty interstate
by starlight,
flying along in a dream,
countryside alive with shapes and shadows,
but exit ramps lined
with eighteen wheelers
and truckers sleeping in their cabs
make me consider pulling into a rest stop
and closing my eyes. I’ve done it before,
parking next to a family sleeping in a Chevy,
mom and dad up front, three kids in the back,
the windows slightly misted by the sleepers’ breath.
But instead of resting, I’d smoke a cigarette,
play the radio low, and keep watch over
the wayfarers in the car next to me,
a strange paternal concern
and compassion for their well being
rising up inside me.
This was before
I had children of my own,
and had felt the sharp edge of love
and anxiety whenever I tiptoed
into darkened rooms of sleep
to study the small, peaceful faces
of my beloved darlings. Now,
the fatherly feelings are so strong
the snoring truckers are lucky
I’m not standing on the running board,
tapping on the window,
asking, Is everything okay?
But it is. Everything’s fine.
The trucks are all together, sleeping
on the gravel shoulders of exit ramps,
and the crowded rest stop I’m driving by
is a perfect oasis in the moonlight.
The way I see it, I’ve got a second wind
and on the radio an all-night country station.
Nothing for me to do on this road
but drive and give thanks:
I’ll be home by dawn.

From The Correct Spelling and Exact Meaning.

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It’s a bring-your-book road trip, but magazines are okay, too. Scientific American this time, its cover a radiant brain floating in sapphire. Which is how I imagine the inside of his skull.

He flips the pages, squinting in the fading light. Grandpa exclaims, ‘What! But that’s an adult magazine!’ More from pride than skepticism: the subscription was a birthday present.

‘Well. I get by.’

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He noticed the Google Doodle: three faceless women in red, green, and violet. One held a stethoscope, one wore a mortar board, and one possessed nothing more than long, flowing hair, because women are fabulous even without accessories.

He asked me what the drawing was for; ever since Pac-Man and Jules Verne, Ian pays special attention to the Doodles. ‘International Women’s Day.’

‘Oh,’ he said, and rested his head on my shoulder. ‘Is there an International Men’s Day?’

‘Nope.’

His head popped up. ‘Whaat!’

I shrugged.

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‘Do you know what that means?’ He shakes his head.

‘Well, imagine you’re a piece of meat, frying in a pan.’ He throws his eyes open and shudders. ‘Waaaaaah!’

‘Now you jump out of the frying pan, and land in the fire!’

‘Wooooah ahhhhh eeeeee!’

‘Where would you rather be: in the pan, or in the fire?’

He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. ‘I’m back in the pan with my old friend, Bacon!’

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We’re snuggling in the arctic chill of a movie theater, and watch as the Love Interest trembles but takes the hand of our Hero as he leads her to the edge of the rooftop. Smiling to hide her fear, she nervously admits that she doesn’t care for heights.

Ian nods after a handful of candy finds his mouth in the dark. He swallows and whispers in my ear, ‘I’m afraid of heights myself.’

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Ian looked at me and frowned, because it’s a foregone conclusion. ‘That’s right, Daddy. You’re one dad!’

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