heart attack," they finally
decided and what I
thought inside was--it
was really heart break

I believe,

doctors are really
romantics at heart

and as I thought this, thought of
him and her (together in death) I
came upon my Turtle--Number 1--

dead man's float, his
partner clawing at
him, the ripples in

their tupperware aquarium
small and a little miserable

fishing Turtle 1 out,
I did not know what
to do with him, and
in the end I could
only leave him in the
trash can, his coffin
a Nike shoe box

I tried hard to imagine the garbageman as
his guardian to the underworld, the garbage
truck his Viking ship, melting in the flames
of sun, cast away to Heaven's gates on a sea

of tired gravel