9:37 pm

When I kissed your ring all those years ago,
I was one in a thousand there that morning

to see your smile and that half-wave for real.
Did you know I was tempted, peering up

from your hand, to ask, What about us?
I was only a boy. Inwardly, I did ask, staring

straight into your eyes with what you must
have dismissed as the usual awe and devotion.

Perhaps I believed you could be something
else that moment, a presence that would

at least register the longing and fear nestled
at the heart of that question. Ten years later,

watching the news about your death,
I would ask, What about you? This time,

I hurled the words with my mind to the view
of flats outside the window above the image

of your fans crying into cupped hands, not
caring if anybody would hear, let alone

hint at a reasonable reply. Your impossibly
round face bobbed up on the screen, smiling

to hide the grimace in your eyes. I looked
back out the window again, listening instead

to the man breathing beside me on the bed,
his hand like a buoy on the rise and fall

of my belly, nothing left now to ask you
that I had not already asked the sky, its small

congregation of stars, that whittled moon.