The Loan
	   By Steven Hill

It comes back to me in pieces,
in reflective bites over breakfast cereal—
the smile of moonlit miles,
walks under freckles of stars 
two bodies, folded in a hammock,
childish words for you, carved in a tree
so close, the summer grass as we crawled.
And we rubbed, I and thou,
cheek to cheek,
hair to hair,
cheek hairs brushed by dew, 
drizzle like feather clouds
like memories of my baby blanket, 
star-crossed patterns peering 
at each other through our
windows—
what marvelous shelters,
you and I,
what a lighthouse,
what a beacon glowed within you and
beamed out at me 
through your windows.

And then—suddenly—it was all gone. Poof!
This life is on loan, it turns out.
What we thought was ours belongs somewhere else,
drifted back home
leaving a pile of bones and
scattered remains, ashes, chalky petroglyphs
shards of pottery
and a long trail of relations like ribbons 
	to carry on with what they too have borrowed.
 
Dandelion’s time had come to leave upon the wind,
not returning when spring 
	pushed up through the soil again.
We thought we would all live on the same block forever,
a shady cul-de-sac with 
	a box elder swaying over the creek,
the water feigning timelessness,
tree rings to infinity.
But a storm got the elder, the years dried the creek,
your kiss became a memory
our conversation a hushed prayer,
the doctor’s words a trace
	whispering through the moonlit lace,
the last light I saw reflected in your graying eyes
showed the telephone disconnected, 
the boisterous neighborhood grown silent
bat and ball, lifeless in the on-deck
a field no longer sown,
the grandfather clock chiming 
	over a hearth gone cold.

Everything in its own way announces the final curtain, 
we trowel a foundation, 
mark ourselves with a lifetime of endeavor
and then we are called to relinquish the monument;

	no, it relinquishes us

	Dull chatter in the background, announcing itself at the door,
with a rap and a rude harrumph,
waistcoat fastidious on the coach driver,
ah yes, the coach awaits, the door creaks open,
passage for one.

It’s a marathon and then
nothing, 
silhouette instead of stone,
		the universal groan, 
pace yourself, passage for one,
you won’t be takin’ it with you,
this life is on loan.