Dorothea Grossman

I don't own an exquisite way to move around in the night —Doug Benezra It occurs to me that, when I die, they might find the necklace I dropped behind the bed and wonder how long it was there, and whether I’d missed it. But will they care about my favorite color, my long-range plans, or my habit of searching myself for signs of rust?

It was your idea to park and watch the elephants swaying among the trees like royalty at that make-believe safari near Laguna. I didn’t know anything that big could be so quiet. And once, you stopped on a dark desert road to show me the stars climbing over each other riotously like insects like an orchestra thrashing its way through time itself I never saw light that way again.

These frail, white widows who get their hair done weekly in tight curls, like little flowers, bend their heads until the applause says it’s time to be brave again.

In a lightning bolt of memory, I see our statue of Buddha (a wedding gift from Uncle Gene) which always sat on top of the speaker cabinet. When a visitor asked, “So, does Buddha like jazz?” you said, “I hope so. He’s been getting it up the ass for a long time.”

It is not so much that I miss you as the remembering which I suppose is a form of missing except more positive, like the time of the blackout when fear was my first response followed by love of the dark.

I knew something was wrong the day I tried to pick up a small piece of sunlight and it slithered through my fingers, not wanting to take shape. Everything else stayed the same— the chairs and the carpet and all the corners where the waiting continued.

I have to tell you, there are times when the sun strikes me like a gong, and I remember everything, even your ears.

I allow myself the luxury of breakfast (I am no nun, for Christ’s sake). Charmed as I am by the sputter of bacon, and the eye-opening properties of eggs, it’s the coffee that’s really sacramental. In the old days, I spread fires and floods and pestilence on my toast. Nowadays, I’m more selective, I only read my horoscope by the quiet glow of the marmalade.

Among other things, thanks for explaining how the generous death of old trees forms the red powdered floor of the forest.