Last Days

There are those things that we wish,

if we could make any wish; money, drugs, sex?

But the wish I would wish is

that I would have known my last days:

the last really nice autumn day before the cold winds

began to blow in, the last time I saw

my grandma, my first love, my favorite dog,

before they were gone. I would have spend that

last golden fall day outside with the dogs, or down by the river.

instead of inside behind a desk.

I would have told them goodbye while we could, before

the cancer, the old age, time itself, took them away.

I would have fucked that man one last time.

It isn't that I wish my life richer, just that I could

truly appreciate those best moments as they come.

Some things never get better,

no matter what label you slap on them.

The best shine is fresh from the still, not

some $40 bottle from a WalMart liquor store.

As we get richer we tend to forget,

the joy of a rough-coated pony. and the smell of

a fresh spring creek. (They think

the season, I am thinking water fresh from the karst)

So if I could know the best; that one great trip to Tahiti,

that amazing Borzoi, the best poem I would ever read.

If I could live a life of

living only the best. That one moment before the accident,

where we can change one second from defeat, to being safe.

That is what I would wish, the ability to tell those moments.