The man on this bed is semi-transparent.
I say the man, because it almost isn’t
you, who are dissolving into mystery
before me. Your voice is a slip of sand.
A host of friends press close, unseen
or partly seen in a few words transcribed
on a whiteboard for your failing eyes.
I’m torn in two, pinned to my address
and also to your hospice in Vermont;
I hover, as you do, in body and out.
But I’m a fraud, earthbound, selfish
in my vows to flesh, mortally stricken
by your will to die. The years hang
on your lanky frame, a beautiful but
ill-fitting coat. What do you hear,
though you’ve gone wholly deaf?
Is it a Call, and does it shake you,
shake the ripe seed from the husk?
If I say I love you, could it wait?

I’m smoothing your pillow, all the time
I seem busy at market, or in a meeting,
or up all night, watching the moon ride
over chimneys, behind half-lit clouds.
When I kneel in the park, readying
a boat, smoothing its rice paper sail,
I’m stroking your hand. When I bend
over the glass box where a pupa hangs
by a thread, and under its encasement
stirs a ghost of folded wings, dreaming
air, I hold my breath to keep you here.
Now I rehearse the Fauré Requiem,
which barely nods at Judgment Day
but shimmers, floats In Paradisum—
Angels are leading you. Te decent angeli.
Past Amen, beyond body’s vibration,
in a silver hush I catch a glimpse.
of what you mean to mean. You rise
upgathered to another form. You stay
with me as you slide out of time.