the day after
you died i
found your note
pls get creamer – xo
friends… logistics… funeral…
then alone
with your ghost
hi! leave a message!
how could i ever
erase that voice?
and what do i do
with this dress?
re-emerging took zigs
and zags and time
it was over coffee
i first laughed again
then chided myself
for forgetting you
until i remembered
the time you told me
a laugh is a blessing
i swear
i could hear you
telling me yes
laugh your heart out hon
today i keep
two reminders
by the door —
the creamer note
and a parking ticket
the one i yelled at you about
that morning for reasons
that escape me now
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 3.
Rob Cook was a founding employee at Pixar and recipient of the first Oscar given for software. A childhood in rural east Tennessee was followed by a period of physical and spiritual wandering that eventually landed him in San Francisco. Along the way, he studied physics at Duke, went to graduate school at Cornell and Caltech, played piano, rock climbed, meditated, and flew planes. He and his wife live in North Beach, and they have a son in Brooklyn. He likes to live at the intersection of art, science, inner exploration, and worldly practicality, sprinkled liberally with adventure and fun. He has studied at the Writers Studio, and his work has been published or is forthcoming in Evening Street Review, Jelly Bucket, Pennsylvania English, Soundings East, Visitant Lit, and Whistling Shade.
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