Suicide Note

Suicide Note

Old friend now there is no one alive

who remembers when you were young

…

and all these years I have looked through your limbs

…

and you were the way I saw the world.

                      From “Elegy for a Walnut Tree”

                                              W. S. Merwin

Sometimes it’s in the pocket

of an old coat you haven’t worn

in an age and you pull it out

and draw it to your nose 

the way the old when they were young

would draw water for a bath

slow steamed pour, almost boiling

but still sliding through

the wince wince for the brief relief of heat

in a cold February morning room.

Sometimes you close your eyes

as you pull your breath in and if

you’re alone you hold your lungs

in your hands and you’re not  standing

on the threshold of the closet

at all and while you smile a smile not a smile

 

you hear it, a soft knock, and instead

of turning around you fold it

the way it’s always been folded, the way

it was folded when it arrived

the way she folded it when she was finished,

after she put the pen down, let the ink

dry, sweet stamp glue still tingling

on her tongue but would fade,

long fade and be gone

by the time you found her.