Hydrologic Cycle

Now you’re a pal hunching
ten yards away with a cigarette,
identical to buttered popcorn
to the birds overhead
who don’t know a goddamned thing,
and next thing you know
you’ll be saying hello darkness.
Now you see,
now you don’t.
Is anyone ever ready?
Do you get an explanation?
An apology?
Or does the water that was you
(that was 70% of you)
reenter the cycle and shed your name?
Evaporating, condensing, purifying,
quenching, forming ice crystals,
and rainbows, the same water
for billions of years recycled
in the planet’s breathing helix
(it’s absolutely true: no new water
is ever made and none ever stops
being water):
molecules of this shape-shifting skyscape
must once have been you,
Monika, Steve, Bonnie.
Allen, Ricky, Nate,
all of you.