Niagara Falls

The day I learned my wife was dying

I thought of all the words we’d never speak.

Not just I love you or let’s go for a walk,

but complaints and words from fights.

How much I’d give to have her to tell me

take out the garbage, pick up your books!

I’d be eager to see her angry again; I’d accept

any slight or defamation of character.

But like the world on old maps, up ahead

loomed a cataract. As at Niagara, folks

with telescopes might watch us float by

as we, in our barrel, bobbed toward it. How

feeble is language! Where were the words

to turn this to a story to make her laugh?