Parting Advice

I forgot our host had a cat,
	         so Tony and I both backed out the door
to grab the Allegra I always keep in my car,
	         a habit that says a lot about me,
he said, before we threw back our heads
	         and downed our pills like shots of whiskey,
the Blue Ridge night alive around us
	         with frogs and cicadas and darkness.
I didn’t know if he meant that I was too prepared—
	         as in terrified by how risky it is
not to worry. He had said as much before,
	         something about my being too in love
with wisdom and grace and afraid
	         of wildness. As I started back
toward the party that was waiting for us—
	         or for him, really, since the dinner
cooling on the table was in his honor—
	         he told me to wait. So I waited
and waited some more for him to tell me
	         why we were waiting. Instead
he stood in the driveway and looked
	         out at the mountains and meadows
that were now too dark to see. Or was he listening
	         to the cicadas, the night itself?
He wasn’t waiting, I know, for me
	         to say anything, because when I did,
he hushed me as though I were a child
	         or maybe still his student.
But I wanted to thank him for visiting
	         even though he was ill.
(He would die within a year, after years
	         of seeming as if he would die within a year.)
How often do we say that we don’t have the words
	         to tell someone how much
they’ve meant to us? As if language
	         were only good at admitting its defeat
and then charging on anyway, a sinking boat
	         that won’t sink so long as we keep
bailing buckets of seawater over our shoulders.
	         He gestured out at the night, hands
spread like someone presenting a masterpiece
	         or someone mocking someone
who would present a masterpiece that way—
	         maybe both, definitely both—
and said, “That,” and I looked into the dark
	         at “that”—The driveway? The unlit street?—
and when I turned to ask him what he meant,
	         he had already gone back through the door.