— for Chris Cobb
Behind the wheel of your envy-of-every-man truck,
singing Black Water with the Doobies and me. A tsunami of a wreck,
the way a friend tells me her brother had his heart attack.
Ditto in our deck boat, after pulling out of the cove where we had drifted,
sunned, meditated. Green grasses and poplars sipping the shore,
violet mountains blessing us.
Your heart could’ve seized like a cold stone anywhere, anytime,
the cardiologist said. Living on borrowed time, lucky to live 61 years.
So many bad, sad ways to die, but friends remind me yours was best—
in a nano-second, solo so I wouldn’t have to see or panic.
You’d had toast and your diet Coke while mist rose from the lake.
Would you have chosen later that night instead—in your recliner after
your Bulldogs devoured the championship.
Or at Sanford Stadium, where you want your ashes spread.
Or Viennese waltzing in a tux with your woman in blue silk a month later,
New Year’s Eve, spinning, spinning like St. Vitus dancers.
–
Karen Paul Holmes has two poetry books, No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich). Her poems have appeared on The Writer’s Almanac, The Slowdown, and Verse Daily. Publications include Diode, Plume, and Valparaiso Review. She and her husband are opera geeks.
© 2023, Karen Paul Holmes
Halfway Down the Stairs 