After Pablo Neruda’s “A Dog Has Died”  

I don’t lie next to you on the bed,
and I don’t plan to join you now.  For me,  

it’s the stubborness of cold words
because I don’t believe in absolute
 
togetherness.  Promises droop like a giant peach,
holding a world of large insects  

who befriend a boy.  On the page,
they await us, again and again.  

Though I won’t speak of love,
it hovers around us, like the blowing wind  

or the stars that float above seagulls.
Intimacy takes many forms, and one is silence.  

Time is ours to waste, here in this pure land
sweet with chocolates and kindnesses  

and shameless daily joy. 
We are not yet gone.