Dear Robert,
where do you wander now?
Do you look out over rooftops
and wonder where else there is to be?
Do you still pace along the Liffey
and sit around in saintly Greens?

Do you still take the train to the seaside
where we looked out
to Holyhead on the pale horizon,
fought off seagulls
and exchanged our lost time?
Does smoke still billow out your chimney
or have you finally kicked the habit?
Do you still hallucinate
in lofty country mansions?
Do you quarrel with your lover?
(Do I ask too many questions?)

Dear Robert,
your old bed awaits you with wrinkled sheets —
crow’s feet of dusty pillows —
your old dog’s coat is gray-tipped,
she sighs and wonders
when her master will return.
(Perhaps she wonders
if you ever were at all.)

Dear Robert,
bittersweet is the fruit
of our harvest —
how many years have passed
since we uprooted and sowed
the seeds of our
perennial departure?

Dear Robert,
the ground is livid with fiery autumn —
her wind wails to mourn your absence
and throws leaves about in tantrum.
My world is ablaze —
you set fire to the earth,
stole away and let it burn.

Dear Robert,
am I lost in our antiquity?
Time will not forgive us
but I hope you can forgive me;
I can’t remember how much time has passed —
how many years older will you be?

Dear Robert,
my old receipts have all but faded;
wedged between poems,
my vanishing souvenirs.

Dear Robert,
bold and emphatic,
I’m not quite sure
what to say.

≋

June 25, 2021
Québec City