I’m destroying my bucket list with one cognitive rip:

The books, here on our shelves or in libraries and stores

whose pages I’ll leave unturned;

cities like Venice, Barcelona and Tokyo

where others can traverse the streets,

the mechanical bull that will ride on without me,

the bungee cord left to dangle for someone else.

And alternatively to index what’s kicking

the bucket now, or has already:

the late morning’s sunlight disappeared by the snow,

a bag of fresh bagels the children’s stomachs consumed,

one less day to kiss the back of my beloved’s neck.

Had Methuselah made it to 970

would he have tried to help Noah build the ark,

or simply have watched the first falling drops,

perhaps unaware of the downpour to come,

but old enough to know everything wet eventually dries,

that the coldest moments give way to warmth,

and that a bucket might look only half-filled later,

but you don’t always notice when the brim is reached;

that you might have been looking up, waiting for the rain to clear,

and for a time, at least, it was overflowing.

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