Dear Bob,

The mountain thinks it’s the same without you but it’s wrong. Maybe the same stars whisking themselves further off, the darker the brighter, same chamomile crushed underfoot but the little, wiry dog we loved has preceded us into paradise, not that I expect to join her even though my own crappy heart’s worse, running’s out but I may be finally learning how to sit in a chair. I still don’t know what to call the good morning bird although whatever word’d be no truer than manzanita. I think namelessness has a crush on me, on how clean I keep my room, the usual stunned ruckus of wake up. But it’s a different moon, different woman on the hotel balcony yet the same kinda scary, vacant stare, caryatid foreseeing what? Before turning back to the customary, immaculate vacation squalor inside. The cash machine still says “enter to exit” but there’s more water in the creek than I’ve ever seen, the brighter the darker, in that first dream there was none.