july fourth, 1826

"oh enough already we

both are quite aware of ironical
coincidence it has afflicted us
since before

we had been conceived as anything
less than men and much more than
fonts of words, prophets and carters
and doormen for words,

they gushed forth from our combined
collective, they

grappled over us like red mountains,
we knew from the start that
there would be a damn coincidence to mar
even our words-

it would be in words.
and worst yet it would be a collection of completely

irrelevant surveillances that
perhaps a traveler would make,
passing by the gray morning,
or overhead,

a bird with sharp enough eyes-

so yes. he did
outlive me. by moments
in the very least we both
sat and condemned everything
else that

the biographers would excite their novel fountain pens over years later
perhaps my

own son. perhaps his beloved house. we did so much
that a death would have been

an understatement. instead

there was a death and there was much more.
so then

leave the morning. it could
have been any

other day."