By Dobby Gibson

In the end I imagine
it’s the only thing
they’ll dress us in
if we can reach the place
where the others
have been waiting
last night I dreamed
you were the one
who found a way
to email me from there
with more of the poems
that never stopped arriving
when you were alive
in my dream you wrote
never use gown in a poem
unless you really mean it
and when I woke
I knew I shouldn’t wait
to say I miss you
my brilliant and difficult friend
you were haunting me all along
when I reached out
my hand it passed through
without touching the scar
I should have known
the way cats followed you
everywhere like words
I didn’t know the meanings to
the way someday I’ll learn
it’s finally my turn
to reach for what hangs empty
from the silver hook
on the back of the strange door.

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Dobby Gibson is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Little Glass Planet (Graywolf Press, 2019). He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.