Because I awaken
at 6:19
to pain
as if my heart
were a wishbone
pulled apart,
I am not surprised
when they climb
the stairs
to tell me
you are dead.
Now I understand
what fear is:
waiting
for the messenger
to tell me what
I know.

Excerpted from Transforming Matter, Pearl Editions, 2000

A portion of ashes we buried,
the portion remaining to be scattered
sits on a shelf
in my office, the container swathed
in a flannel bag, like the bag
protecting your tuxedo shoes.
How handsome you were in formal clothes!
Strangers often asked if you were someone.
Should they ask for your autograph?
The irreducible things that make up a person—
ashes, bits of tooth and bone—
transform from one noun
into another.
Before your death, Dear heart
I didn’t know
that physics and grammar
are the same sad subject:
the transformation of matter,
transforming what matters.

Excerpted from Transforming Matter, Pearl Editions, 2000

I refuse to say
pass away
or even die
words both passive,
natural, insist
instead on killed,
word cruel enough
to pluck you
from this life.

Excerpted from Transforming Matter, Pearl Editions, 2000

One night you come back fat.
When I ask why, you say,
the dead don’t exercise,
but we do eat dinner.

Excerpted from Transforming Matter, Pearl Editions, 2000

Kathy gives me a card
with angels on dolphin back
swirling from sea to sky.

I think of the morning last spring
when from our window
we spotted a pod of dolphin
and you abandoned breakfast
to join them for a swim.

The card’s inscription:
Together we will transcend
the illusion that is time
and space.

Transcend. Joke on my license plate.
Comic motto for the non-believer.
Maybe where you are now
you know what that word means.

Not me. I’m in Mexico.
Interregnum of old life and new.
Angry with you
for this dislocation.
I loved you in my other life.

I dreamt last night my friend
left her green parrot in my care,
but I failed to feed
or give it water
and when she came to claim it,
the bird lay dead
next to a vase of browning lilies.

Suddenly, you appear
in the dark sea
of my dream, saying
I don’t remember when
we last made love.

Be patient, Dear Heart,
I’m learning how
to love you dead.

excerpted from Transforming Matter, Pearl Editions, 2000

for Lenore Brown

In my heaven I wear
white cashmere Armani,
eat chocolate truffles
without dribbling my breasts.
The more Camels I smoke
the better my breath smells
and Cosmos and cabernet—
all the fruit that I wish.
Every day here is Great Hair Day
and I always look ravishing,
rested and thin. There are no duties
in heaven, just one long salon
with talk unfailingly brilliant.
Infinitely witty and quick
come to mind. No sputtering
world for tiresome distraction. Up here,
down there doesn’t come up for discussion.
Life in heaven: endless insouciance,
all bon mots and bonbons.
Did I mention how superb is my French?
And what of my poems?
Now, Major Movies.
Every one sold for Big Bucks
and starring in all The Roles of a Lifetime
is my favorite actress,
the incomparable, inimitable,
lovable Me.

Excerpted from Traveler in Paradise: New and Selected Poems, Pearl Editions, 2004