After the storm,
I take my bike out in the darkness.
The dog runs ahead.

We convene at our secret spot,
beneath an oak in a neighborhood park
that is really just a clear-cut for power lines.

To relax, I think about a comet obliterating Earth:
but a weird one, a weird fussy comet
that removes everything
except these power lines,
and anyone awake and dreaming.
I would sit here until I could use the light of dawn
to count these wooden totems
from here to the place where they clot on the horizon.

Equipped with the world’s biggest rosary,
for each one counted,
I’d think of one of you,
dotted across the world on rooftops and benches,
reclining on hotel balconies,
restless in hammocks,
wherever you go when your last conversation
has hung in the room like stale incense
and you’re tired, tired.

And I’d send you blades of grass in envelopes.
Or some other sort of twee horseshit
just to say I love you.

But if the world’s end comes not tonight,
I’d be happy just to watch my happy dog
run home with street light pooling on his muscles.
I am so thankful for that.