From a distance
everything looks thinner.

Like wearing black
or a pinstripe suit.

Even death
can seem like nothing

more than a crack
in the windscreen.

Time is the distance
that has made you disappear.

The neighbor still tinkers every weekend
on that boat he never sails.

Each evening at precisely six
I expect you and the cat for dinner.

Sometimes the crack is barely visible.
Sometimes it seems healed over.

Light passing through it
has the properties of waves— and bullets.

Sometimes the crack wanders
until the whole glass shatters.