Photos

Time seems to cuddle
two shores — before death
and after.

You’re young, the moon
curls around your face
and you smile.

The background is
Niagara Falls, winter,
seagulls against snow.

You sip Chardonnay, consume
bread slips and cheese,
punctuate each moment

with a laugh, regurgitate
tales from the latest
case against traffic

in the inner core.
You applaud mass transit,
mass machinations of

people owning the environment.
The cough arrives later,
somewhere after the annual

sleigh rides through
Mennonite country,
wineskins depleted

and retirement, the parties,
the accolades, the evenings
in palliative care

when we visited, you
trailing tubes, stating
that you were past

your best before date,
gasping for each breath,
the rhythm slowing

like a dance winding down
into faltering steps,
you dancing on until.