"Postcard/brief candle" by Keith Woodruff

Postcard

Brief Candle

Dear William, the weather's unbeautiful and I wish you were here, because I need to strut and fret a little. I know you know this loss, so father to father I want to confess that tonight, under this moon, for a moment I was unsure how old he would be. Did you ever lose days, confuse the years. Did you ever wish to sleep and wake pillowed on another life? Far away an owl calls. On nights like this, it's the same way his empty room calls. When he died I was hollowed, braced for the agonies to follow, for how my life would drag on though I believed it had ended. Brief candle? Let seasons and cicada fulfill this miserable premise. Not our sons and daughters. In those early days I imagine you, for the first time in your life, briefly, at a loss for words. They say that is when you turned away from comedies to tragedies. What didn't kill me has left me weaker, not stronger; left me fearful of the years to come, years pregnant with the losses to come, and the pale, wax-smooth scar across my wife's stomach, like a seam of ice that never thaws, always reminds. Before I go, here's a joke: What did the octave say to the sestet? You complete me. Our griefs rhyme, William. We should get together, compare notes. Like: does happiness, feeling happy, sometimes feel like a punishment. That's twisted, right? Hey, don't be a stranger. No one is watching over us, and the angels are faking it. K.