might get a
little bit awkward,
it'd be best
if we practiced
saying goodbye.
This is not an argument
against the primacy
of heaven.
Only—it seems,
after hours spent glimpsing
the moon out the window
during decades
of cold nights
inside warm secure houses,
we must admit
to having tasted
so many paradises;
each one,
its own delicacy—
a leftover
hors d'oeuvre—
from its own
private party.