I’m driving west on Summit Avenue
when suddenly the sky goes glamorous,
the clouds hike up their plum-colored velvet
and radiance of sun-flesh floods through—

golden the navel-knot on the horizon,
golden the balconies of the oak’s theater,
golden the cooling flanks of the river,
golden even the sorrows I still taste

from yesterday’s memorial for Tamara.
Oh dear friend! You’ve gone on alone now—
my senses brim with what you’re missing,
starting with this voluptuous sunset.

We mourn, believing the dead have no need
to mourn us—they’re someplace we’ve never
left, still together, the circle unbroken.
Only we, here, come and go one at a time,

we the living, left to embrace each sunset
given us, trying to walk in a straight
line while the sun turns under, all of us
agreeing we do not know what we know.