Looking Into Last Lights
Ellen and I, entranced, lifting
our contact-paper-covered
toilet paper rolls into twilight,
sought out the sparkles of the setting
Venus surrounded still
with daylight deep in Texas desert lands
where the vultures lined up along the fences
every evening before our long night
of sky watching …. or my call to her
in an Upstate New York hospital
room, she, the nurse said, staring out
a west window at the sunset,
called her to talk with a far-away Carol
… “Oh! Do you know Carol?”
she asked me, the closest approach
she managed to recognizing me,
she there in the shine of another last light.
But there was always wonder
in her voice, and I, I kept
wondering
wondering at all
l the things
those unseen black holes
swallow
up.