Let’s say I’m bleeding. Let’s say I’m sitting in this blue chair.
I’m reaching into the future. 
All night I tossed in my bed, unable to sleep. 

Outside many cats screeched beyond the garden wall. 
Wind wailed, and in the morning, oak leaves everywhere. 
Let’s say I cooked eggs for breakfast, and nothing had changed. 

Another beautiful spring day. 
My neighbor’s tulips are up, yellow and red.
Someone posted a sign about a bear, 

and in the evening we gathered by the pool to sing. 
Some of us wept, some of us had to turn away. 
We all had pictures we wanted to share. 

It’s fair to say, our children are beautiful.
Where words fail, let us not speak. 
We walk in a new kind of silence, chastened and ashamed.
                        

The subject is loss, she said, 
the subject is fire and rain. 
With that, the room disappeared. 

We all started talking at once. 
It’s so strange to be old, she said, 
to talk about the ones who died.

We go to the garden and pull 
daisies, petunias, 
brightly colored ferns.

When we return, there are vases 
and sharp knives, 
a table filled with food. 

Tonight we argue 
about arugula and grapes. 
She pours the wine, 

warns if we drink too much, 
it will shrink our brains.
I remember nothing, not dolphins 

surging off the coast, or the glider 
that nearly crashed on the cliff,
then vanished behind the setting sun.