The easiest way to vanish
is by possession. The birds are debating
my loneliness again. Everyone I know
is mourning someone, or something.

There's an old myth about a river
that borders this life and the afterlife. Somewhere,
a boy tosses a gold coin into the river,
and the world goes quiet, like the silence

that follows the smoke of a gunshot.
Every road in this city is littered
with glass shards. Outside, a man
is crying in the safety of his car.

Somewhere, a boy abandons himself
to the incomprehensible prose of grief. Look
how I keep trying to kiss feral dogs. You ask
if I'll be sad when you're gone.

I don't know. I'm always sad.
Nothing is definitive, not even you. Here,
there’s no euphemism for extinction.