For Rob

Amy

He’s transformed into a bear
The ones that hibernate until their hair falls out and their teeth are so dull that children walk home from school to use the bear tooth as a lucky charm, to rub down with their thumbs and throw into the well
And the only well that anyone ever opened up to me was the one behind our apartment
I’ve wished so many times for people
For their happiness, their recovery, their excitement to reach a peak they’d never known
And now that Rob is gone
I wish for his happiness but I don’t know if he’ll have it
I never wish for things I don’t think I’ll get anymore
And I don’t know if there’s a heaven
So, my wish for you is rusty, only like an antique key
Old arthritic women wear around their sleeping necks
To remember there’s a door that they used to run through
It was this time last week that he was in the hospital
My dear neighbor, there in bed
Miles away from the bed he slept in every night three floors above my bed
He has gone and didn’t take anybody with him
And I know so many who knew him better
But he came downstairs to my place one night
With some wine and two glasses
And we sat where it was cooler than the inside of our building
On the stoop, it was still summer, and we shared
All the wine
And I didn’t worry
And it is awful that deep down
I am glad we didn’t do that again
Another night with different wine
Because we would have become friends
And we would have fallen in love
And now I would be a grieving girl
And I grieve
In a way
Unflattering for me
In an inverted funnel that I piss tearful cries out of
It takes a lot of force, a lot of guts, a lot of stars
To push the sky back up