Mountain Life 
 
One northern night the perfect poem  will arrive.
I will type it, read it once, and throw it away. 

Gulp my aquavit. Take my cigarettes. Very gently
kiss my kids. And her. Put on my wool cardigan.
 
Walk to the fjord and stay for the first ferry,
reckoning how not to write the subsequent life. 
 
First published in The Aroostook Review, 2006