r. krantz

Whitman in Canada

Our dying didn't
matter to many,
silence of our song
becoming a palate of
adolescent chortles
and chants
for more or less.
Our first kiss
in Canada grew
like cities on plains—
spears of wheat,
new roots earth-desperate
and starving.
For once, nothing
arose from the past,
no green tides
to pull our moods
over these naked swells
of blue sage and heather—
clear-eyed moon
speaking bold yesses
to its own hovering.
In the evening,
you lounge on the settee
of the hotel portico,
remembering undergraduate
cigarettes and Niagara Falls.
I read Whitman,
last page to first—
beginning with death,
ending in light.