In Your Chair

Who joins the ranks of the beloved dead?

It is easier to love those who have departed,

Who have left the airless rooms the living inhabit

And floated into the unwalled realm of dreams

Than rub against the obstacles of bodies,

Stubborn, opaque. You were sitting in your armchair

Surrounded, almost submerged, by drifts of paper --

Mail, piles of it, and almost all for me.

The heap seemed festive, Christmas-lavish, wasteful.

I fished a letter out almost at random,

Then scurried to the atlas, found the map

So I could show you where I would be going.