I just wanted to write and say,
in case you are hit tomorrow by a truck

or are swept from the beach by a freak wave;
or in case your ex-wife decides

to take her own life
right after taking yours;

or in case you go to the doctor,
who finds a lump in your neck,

and you are carried swiftly out onto the terrible waters
of clinics and infusions

and I never see you again —
I just wanted to say,

Bon voyage, my friend, my dear and former friend.
I just wanted to confess

how much you meant to me back then,
before I learned to hold my love in check

thanks to my tutorial with you.
Thank God I got those holes sealed shut

through which every passerby
could see my neediness,

and thank God I banished you
into that frozen part of me

where nothing moves or breathes.
And yet it’s funny, isn’t it?

Our weakness can never be eliminated;
neediness is part of what we are.

Living is a kind of wound;
a wound is a kind of opening;

and even love that disappeared
mysteriously comes back

like water bubbling up from underground,
cleansed from its long journey in the dark.

Right in the open, there it is,
waiting for someone to arrive

and kneel and drink from it.