You and I, we talk this way—
as if the Earth were a street with coffee shops
and book stores, as if people lived deliberately,
about the funeral of an old friend and how the men,
dressed in dark suits, stood with their hands
crossed in front of them like wooden statues,
about how, despite loving me, you married Richard
when you were too young to know better,
then Robert who bought you a new Mercedes with money
he was going to make drilling for oil,
then finally Benjamin who hiked into the dense
forest of Costa Rica looking for the perfect coffee bean.
Benjamin, the best of them, you say with a grin
while looking directly into me, a talent you never lost—
as if the thread connecting the two of us was still
intact, and I believe it, of course. How could I not
believe what was never really said, but implied
with a smile and a look. Then it is time to go.