From the Fishouse

for Stanley Kunitz

Sometimes between one of Stanley’s Well's
and whatever he says next,

there’s ample space to take a nap –
it’s late afternoon, and the porch is warm

and quiet—I can drift knowing
the front contour of his next word

will retrieve me when I'm needed,

and he will not have lost the thread
of my question. I don’t fret that I’m neglecting

my work when this happens—I suspect that half-
unconscious I can better communicate

with my employer. He’s been contemplating
a passage marked “Continuity Beyond

the Body” for twenty minutes in silence

when he surfaces: We know the conditions
for survival will pass, he begins. Eventually

this planet earth will become uninhabitable.
When the sun grows cold, as it will,

the conditions for life will be irrevocable.
What are we going to do? he asks me.

Maybe I’ve been thinking too small,

calling around this morning trying
to find him a ride back to New York

in September. More mischief
sparking his voice this time, What

are we going to do about this? he presses.
I say, We'll have to find another life

form to inhabit. I say All we can do

is live fully until the sun cools,
and I remind him a lot will have happened

in the meantime, and there are other suns,
other stars. They’re a long way off, he scoffs,

scattergaze not fixed on any one thing.
And then through the screen, a sharp shift

of light—a wolf spider quivers its web,

and though I’m never certain
what he’s hearing or seeing, I know

it is this glint that has called him back
five-and-a-half billion years when he says, Look.