Bunkers

We emerged blinking from the bunkers, with their casks of wine squirreled away
like cult wives. 

The sun shone on us again, warmed the air ‘til it smelled sweet. Above, turkey
vultures circled the wet, decomposing earth. 

For a moment it was as if we had entered a new world, where what happened hadn’t. Like in her dream, in which he was alive, and she said to him, I had such a terrible dream about you.

And my constant thought, when driving down a country road beside hills blue and patchy as the haunch of a mangy horse, whispering to those ranch horses as they intently approach, howling to the fluorescent moon at night, then swimming naked under it, peering into the World War II bomb shelters where the neighbor stores his vintages: he would love this.

But no— it was the same world. The one he hadn’t wanted to leave. The one where we were left behind, blinking.