Let us not be sad, my darling
though we must make ourselves so
arguing about who’s to blame, whose shame,
throwing those promise-lavished
letters in the trash, the world too
conspiring to part us as lightning
must be from its cloud, the green
from grass, fire from ash, honey
pried from the hive, the hoot from
its owl. Let us somehow not be sorry
but soothed by those afternoons sharp
as white wine collapsed in booths,
evenings entwined with the critters
of ourselves, herd of antelope, nebulae
of migrating monarchs never coming
back, even as we grasped and gasped
every coming come to gone, the goodbye
modus operandi of all bone and tongue.
Even the mountain falls down the mountain,
even in a vacuum, the moon erodes.