When the news came, there was nothing left,
none of those old trappings. When you spoke
I knew it was neither dream nor vision,
that those categories had broken down,
nothing remained, you stood somewhere
in a junkyard-surrounded by piles
of rusted and broken bodies, doors gone,
engines disemboweled, windows shattered-
where they had brought your compact car
after the head-on collision, where you
had come too, inevitably, since
the dead have no other place to go
in this world we have made, nothing waits
beyond, no light escapes from the horizon
of physical events. Occasionally
a couple of teen-age boys wander by
with vise-grips and adjustable wrenches,
looking for cheap parts for their dragster.
Here you could stay forever, unnoticed
among the mountains of rust and old rubber,
the soiled back seats, the glove compartments
with their forgotten artifacts. It remains
only for me to set you now in the prow
of an all-black ‘S7 Chevrolet hard-top
with dual carburetors and a glass-packed
muffler, and pay the ferryman the coins
from your eyes, and see you start out,
not looking back, over those dark waters.
For an Old Flame
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