My goodbye must make its place in the world,
in supermarket shelves, on rooftops,
flowing down rivers, slipping under sheets,
crawling in tunnels, dancing in the rain.
And my protestations of love move on
once they've served their purpose:
dig in the dirt or
train for the full sentence Olympics.
Everything I utter, right or wrong,
has an eternity before it,
a universe to play in.
Even as bodies die,
the billion statements of the tongue
are out there, basking in the sun,
fluttering in the leaves, flashing
with the cardinals and tanagers,
riding the backs of wild pigs
or the fronts of wild people.
I'm not just saying farewell to you
this moment, this place.
I'm saying it tomorrow or
a thousand years from now
I'm saying it in the Amazonian jungle
or way out in deep space.

Whatever, whenever, however and all over.

But, right now, it's just for your ears.