At the Moment

Suddenly, I stopped thinking about Love, after so many years of only that, after thinking that nothing else mattered. And what was I thinking of when I stopped thinking about Love? Death, of course—what else could take Love’s place? What else could hold such force? I thought about how far away Death once had seemed, how unexpected that it could happen to someone I knew quite well, how impossible that this should be the normal thing, as natural as frost and winter. I thought about the way we’d aged, how skin fell into wrinkles, how eyes grew dim; then (of course) my love, I thought of you.