If you were a pipe in a house
burning down, if you were the water
in the pipe, if you were the man
standing outside in his pajama bottoms,
holding your infant daughter in one arm,
your mother's urn in the other
to keep her from being lost
among the ashes of window sills
and joists, some of which fall
like snow at your feet,
if you were the blanket
slipped over the man's shoulders,
his only home in that moment,
if you were the warmth of one hand
and then another on his back,
leading him away, if you were the moon
doing its job above the fire,
pulling at oceans and imaginations,
if you were the fire fighter
who saw a wolf in the flames,
saw it turn three times
as if beckoning, and followed,
and were never heard from again
not a word or bone from your body,
if the silence of the shadow of a life
is all we have, all we leave
if being has no skeleton,
if autopsies are dissections
of zeroes, if your lips
were cicadas against my ear,
if your teeth found their way
to my heart, the red meal of love,
if you had wings, if Icarus called
from the sun, if Sisyphus said,
try again.