In bed with him for the last time, I was busy 
previewing memories. 
The way he said, “Let’s go upstairs, hmm?” 
The way his whiskey drawl 
quickened when he said it.

Or the winter solstice  
when the moon was beaten gold, 
gorgeous as Agamemnon's death mask. 
It was larger than usual, he told me, 
closer to the earth.

The beginning was easy: following the star chart 
in the palm of the hand. He traced 
my life line to the blue in my wrist,     
the shiver in my arm.       
                                      
Almost at once the middle got underway,    
prickly intimations of The End,
 which, as it happened, happened 
more than once.

We need distance to see a dead thing whole.
Now it’s scrubbed clean                                          
as a plot summary. The messy elements
were mopped up by the universe.