Thank you for letters and dreams. Both means by which I visit the dead and the gone, the missing. The belated, aborted goodbyes can now be drawn out for years. Decades now. And so touching and ridiculous and amazing that my heart holds tight to you and you. So tight that you must be part of me by now, my soul growing in rings to encompass your memory, your vibration.

What occurrance, what thought, what breath, brings you and you, and you, to me for words and touch and remembrance. Dreams and letters. Without them I would not forever hold you. How many thousands of seconds, how many deep breaths, how many blinks of my eye have you been with me, waiting for one last word. One last kiss. One last goodbye that would satisfy all the goodbyes I meant to say.

I apologize to myself and my children for all the letters, all the dreams. I rest there willingly, but I know, I know it’s an embarrassment.

But the dreams and the letters, they don’t stop. For all the world, I might want to be hard of heart and cynical, but I can’t stop the profusion of yearning and delight and romantic idling.