To Billy

We did nothing to forgive.

Then, after it peaked
downsloping to normality
sitting in the dark with
my mood and my pen
I thank—God, I suppose:
that it happened
that we read Hemingway
that we toasted each other
in grace. “Unanticipated mercy,”
I thought at Mass this morning,
relating to the tax collector.
Rejoice that it was; mourn
that it is all over now.

—And then I’m interrupted
by the stars over Michigan
who reign, as they have for
maybe millions of years, saying
Be all things to all men,
even small!, even nothing!—

Well, it was. I’m glad it was.
The priests and matadors
asleep in their beds, dream
of nights like these; so
I’ll love you, after it’s over,
probably forever. You cough
with cigarette lungs, from your bed.
I hear it through the window screen
from my dark-porch Adirondack.
I hope you’re sleeping well.
The wind in the trees might swell
the whiskey might stop flowing
but this bright moment happened:
we all loved you, and each other,
and these wide mornings will live
forever, until we all are dead.
I too cannot remember
the act of contrition; but Paco
had done nothing to forgive, anyway.
Remember? That is how it begins.