When I called out from work I said it was because _________ was sick.
She wasn’t sick but she died in my dream the night before.
In a dream no one records the time of death. No one prepares.
No one goes to bed thinking: When I wake up I’ll be ruined.
I’ll know what it’s like to lose a _________. But who can know what this is like.
Can those who live it know, and can we call that living?
When I woke up, I couldn’t.
I lay in bed with _________ all morning, attentive in a way I’m usually not.
Even her hair was alive. Her heart was moving like a soft machine.
She had no knowledge of her own passing. I kept my face
to the side of her face. If you go, I’m coming with you.
Somehow the day had a place to be, but I couldn’t move or let ________ move.
If it happened once, like the longest length of any night, like a hand grabbing
the contents of that night, it could happen again. If time happens,
if harvest happens, if even once a soldier died. If some one,
then every one. I can’t even name her. I’m scared I said she was sick.
