No one likes endings these days 
when so much remains unresolved 
and even when it seems over, 
there’s always a sequel, Wife Number Two, 
or Return to Cabo or some other 
person or place you thought you 
had left for good or left you
only to find you’re there again 
without a real sense of how 
it happened, the sequence of events,
imperceptible except in retrospect.
And even then, it’s a fiction 
to think one action really leads 
to another further down the line
when so many crosscurrents 
and competing clauses render
the idea of intention obsolete.

Yet here you are, standing 
in the kitchen drying a dish or 
watching a prop plane pulling a banner 
down the beach while you twirl 
a pink umbrella in your glass 
and your first thought is where 
along the way did I take a wrong 
turn—maybe that weekend
you shouldn’t have gone 
to La Jolla where everyone, 
even the sad, are secretly happy,
or maybe it’s the other way around, 
who can be sure, or maybe
you should’ve taken your 
editor’s hint and stuck with piano—
and your second thought
is it wouldn’t have made a difference.
No matter where you wound up, 
you’d wonder in your 
wet heart the same thing. 

Perhaps it might be excused 
by how little time or energy 
is left over as the sand runs out 
of the hourglass in the second half 
of the year. Most having been 
expended, in the promise of the first 
half that rarely pans out.
Here’s the rub: as you grow older,
you see with diamond-like lucidity
the world is comprised of merely 
a few elements arranged and 
rearranged into new shapes 
adapted for the weather.
And the terribly depressing 
thing, but maybe the beautiful 
thing too, is this is true 
of people’s personalities 
as well, limited as we are
to a handful of types, blurring 
together on the spectrum.

The word of the year is 
sleepwalking, he told you. 
You’ve been doing a lot 
of that lately, metaphorically 
speaking. More flowers, 
in the foyer or on the lower 
windowsill won’t solve love’s 
problems, not today at least.
Sorry. Nor will opening the blinds 
a tease for the afternoon view, 
the rolling hills where fog 
sweeps over the weir 
like clockwork. The light 
you want is from a star 
that dried up and died long ago. 
Too bad one can’t store it 
in reserve like faith, draw 
on it in an emergency or 
when a bit of warmth is called for. 

Don’t be someone else’s story.
The bus pulls into traffic and
the advertisement disappears. 
Fine advice, it seems, implying 
as it does you’re moping around 
without plot armor, the rumors 
your unevolved heart’s exposed 
to the wind are true, uncomfortably so. 
That whole miserable season of cameos, 
one after another, always showing up 
with lukewarm chardonnay 
as the party was winding down 
and saying, “Apologies, I’m belated,” 
or some other lame joke 
that didn’t stick the landing 
on the welcome mat’s faux grass.

Let’s go sit by the river
where, if we wait for an hour, 
we might see the spotted carp,
as good a sign of good luck 
as one can expect to find
in September when the air is thick 
with a glycerol wash 
of honeysuckle. The Brutalist City 
with its stacked concrete 
and visible wires is behind us, 
which is a relief. People 
can’t spend their whole lives
in a place designed to be ruined 
without going mad. The cloverleaf 
freeway buzzes constantly. 
It’s disinterested in us. So are 
the adumbrated warehouses 
skirting the perimeter. So is 
the day moon getting brighter.
Face it, the world doesn’t care.
This isn’t any hard-earned wisdom
and it certainly isn’t some 
fake epiphany held in reserve,
waiting to hit you in the head
like a foam noodle when
you’re not looking. It’s just
a statement of the facts. 
The moment the story concludes, 
it will begin again with 
the ending. The wind is picking up, 
bending the sawgrass back
and the fog has come in.
I check my watch. It’s that time
of day when I call your name 
to remind myself that you’re 
not here anymore.