The arrow in my heart

I brought a couple of marinated

salmon steaks from a tony grocery store.

You answered the door

and made me drop the bag

so you could embrace me

and prolong the abbreviated kiss

that had started when we'd parted

when we'd met three nights before.

Unfinished business thus completed,

you led me to the kitchen where

three photographs from my profile

were taped on the cupboard doors.

Eleven years and seven months

have passed and they're still there.

We never made it to the South Island

of New Zealand  via Tahiti.

I promised to take you there,

if you'd just stick around a bit,

make it through the winter,

I'd spring for first class seats.

You liked to say that it's hard to hit

a moving target. God knows

you never slowed, I had to push myself

to keep from losing you in crowds.

Did you pause somewhere long enough

for the Devil's arrow to find it's mark?

The one that Cupid loosed at Vesuvio's

found this Mark and it's never coming out.

Hauling ashes

I fetched the box today.

She rode downtown with me

on the thirty eight

to Howard and Beale.

The Blue Angels howled

and shrieked above

as if to rip and rend

the tender autumn sky.

I always enjoyed 

hauling her ashes,

on warm afternoons

on downy sheets and pillows.

As traffic crawled past Powell

I looked up at Macy's 

and saw the window sashes

on the upper floors are rotting.

The lotto tickets in my pocket

came to nothing. I dared fate

-Go ahead, compensate me

for your cruel mistake.

As if I wouldn't trade

a million Franklins

for a few more years.

Instead I shed a million tears.

I'll haul your ashes, dear.

One more time soaring through

the blue Pacific dome

to a restful home

in a temple tower

in Bangkok.

You know the one.

It's right across the street.