Imagine
getting each other’s jokes
each other’s absences
-Now, leaving school
still wordless
still at sea
Imagine death
familiar as this table
Last December
your dog’s child-sized bones
your old friend’s death by cancer
-Now, outside, in the world, imagine
that patience of hope and fear
that will not simplify: imagine
Death, unremarkable,
unremarkable friendship…
Jean Valentine
Jean Valentine is the author of nine books of poetry, including Door in the Mountain, New & Collected Poems (Wesleyan, 2004). She has been a Guggenheim Fellow and was awarded the Shelley Memorial Prize by the Poetry Society of America in 2000. She lives in New York City.
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