You would have totally died even if
yr liver weren’t like a screened-in porch
on a Sunday afternoon. We listened to
Tapestry in the car, doings shots of Jack
Daniels for every book you’d ever written,
even the ones that weren’t about us, and
Amy cried and said she’d cheated on you twice.
Once before the wedding and once after, but
did it count as much because it was a girl.
And it’s too late now, baby, but I’m glad
you didn’t know it rained at yr funeral, that
all yr friends got drunk and sang bubblegum
pop and the Rolling Stones, and that
I had to run out of the service and sit
in the damn bathroom because I’d started crying
when I realized they used “it’s” wrong
in the program, I swear we couldn’t have
planned it better, it was a lovely time, and
your sister gave me her phone number
after I felt her up in the parking lot.
After listening to NPR all day yesterday, I thought I never needed to hear anything about Tapestry again, but see, you proved me wrong. This is swell.