Short Farewells

A toast is the right length, I think,

including the moment not when you eat

your words, for no toast is made on oath,

but when you hold a small mouthful

of wine on your tastebuds and let your body

meditate on travel, the saddest

of its pleasures. Somebody breaks the silence

with a joke and then it's done.

It hurts to age and part but it hurts worse

not to, to turn blue with held breath.

Rain falls on our scalps like the blunt ends

of pins. We wear our grief like an extra flesh,

but it is only pain. Those lurid paths

we blazed along, we fuses? They'll cross

again if we should want. I'll drink to that.