Momento Mori

Here we are
Rounding the edge again
And I wonder if
You recall what you said
When I asked to hear your
Largest as yet unanswered question
And you said, “Why bother at all?”

I just arrived by
The train from Bombay
Never heard anyone
Say it so plain

The prettiest girl in the room
Stood, collected her things
Fastened her coat up
Around her fine throat
And though you didn’t notice there
For just one moment well
I was the prettiest woman with you
Half a world away
Trying hard to stay
Aware of why I came
You forgot the comment
Forgot the moment
Went on your way
There’s got to be a better way
To waste a day

Your mother, you told me
Had been a great beauty
And suffered profoundly
The loss of her looks
You gave a practiced
Exhausted expression
Recited a line from
A quotations book
My father in his youth set off
With a kite and a liter of wine
Mad to determine
The height of the sky
And the breadth of
One human life
No ribbons, no starting guns
Sprinting around the sun
Man’s quaint little race
The heaving contenders
Get one thing to say
And it’s always the same:
Our names
Chiming through space

We stayed up late
Until it became early
And camped in the cold
On the hood of your car
The neighbors, the papers
The radio, TV
Said this evening we could see
Thousands of fast-falling stars
And that sort of thing happens
Just once in lifetimes like ours
I’m hopeless nearsighted
Not much for stargazing
But couldn’t let all of
Those meteors pass
This was our first
This was our only
This was our very last chance