I keep having the conversation with him in my head —
The running dialogue with the dead
That grief conducts, the one-sided
Argument where one side is decided
By the living and the other is silence
That you interpret as the violence
Or the kindness of the ambiguous.
I run the conversation on the commute, the specific
Rehearsal of the vernacular
Of the relationship, the specific
Exchange that gets the terrific
Particularity of his response inserted
By the working memory, the converted
Archive of his reactions into the projection.
The conversation I keep having in my head
Is the most honest conversation with the dead —
Not the ceremony of the addressed-to-nobody letter,
Not the grave-visit rhetoric, the better
Or worse of the formal address,
But the casual, the compress
Of the ordinary ongoing exchange.
I ask his opinion on the specific practical thing —
The job decision, the specific string
Of the house repair question —
And I produce his response from the collection
Of his reactions I’ve been accumulating
For thirty years, the specific rating
Of his position on the question delivered by my approximation.
And I’m often right — I can feel when I’m right —
The specific quality of the bright-
Ness of the produced response that has
The sound of the actual, the jazz
Of his specific intelligence, versus the wan
And unconvincing shade, the gone-
Wrong approximation that doesn’t ring true.
The conversation I keep having is the most complete
Shade of him I can access, the discrete
Evidence of how thoroughly the thirty years
Of relationship installed his gears
Into the operating system of my thinking —
The specific linking
Of his mind to mine that persists past the absence.