Momento Mori

Here we are

Rounding the edge again

And I wonder if

You recall what you said

When I asked to hear your

Largest as yet unanswered question

And you said, “Why bother at all?”

I just arrived by

The train from Bombay

Never heard anyone

Say it so plain

The prettiest girl in the room

Stood, collected her things

Fastened her coat up

Around her fine throat

And though you didn’t notice there

For just one moment well

I was the prettiest woman with you

Half a world away

Trying hard to stay

Aware of why I came

You forgot the comment

Forgot the moment

Went on your way

There’s got to be a better way

To waste a day

Your mother, you told me

Had been a great beauty

And suffered profoundly

The loss of her looks

You gave a practiced

Exhausted expression

Recited a line from

A quotations book

My father in his youth set off

With a kite and a liter of wine

Mad to determine

The height of the sky

And the breadth of

One human life

No ribbons, no starting guns

Sprinting around the sun

Man’s quaint little race

The heaving contenders

Get one thing to say

And it’s always the same:

Our names

Chiming through space

We stayed up late

Until it became early

And camped in the cold

On the hood of your car

The neighbors, the papers

The radio, TV

Said this evening we could see

Thousands of fast-falling stars

And that sort of thing happens

Just once in lifetimes like ours

I’m hopeless nearsighted

Not much for stargazing

But couldn’t let all of

Those meteors pass

This was our first

This was our only

This was our very last chance