reprise

The Last Bed We Buy

Grateful not to find myself

disembodied hovering high above

this stark cake of soap, gazing down

laboring to put names to faces­­­, the couple

so familiar, side by side, palms down, still as

miller moths displayed on pins, I drift off  

to the drone of Bill or Ted, rumpled as

a morning after motel king intoning

soft or firm versus memory foam

or pillow top, hypoallergenic …

the last thing I hear before we fall

fast asleep spooning on a plush queen,

not too soft and not too hard, but just right,

satiny raft to ferry us the last stretch of river.

Waving like the Queen we float past the last new

roof over which we will preside, nod in solemn

recognition of our high efficiency gas furnace

apt to burn on years after I’m gone, applaud

politely what jolly well may be a farewell

drive north through the Tunnel of Trees

some biting October afternoon, weep

softly for our old squirrel chaser sawing

soft imprecations to hips gone tender some

blustery April night dog years from now, blow

low Bronx cheers in a fond adieu to life mediated

through screens. Even Bill or Ted knows that grace

lies just ahead around the next oxbow, leaves us

to dream, two dormice cupped in a leaf, rills

and eddies bearing us seaward, buoying us

downstream on softly rolling shoulders.