He decides to live in her memory
This is the only option he can see.
The few people he knows get annoyed
That he lives alone in a void.
Look for someone else, he’s often told,
And do it soon before you’re too old.
Go out, find another companion,
Go together to the Grand Canyon.
Or hop on a flight to old Cancún
There’s a woman waiting under the moon.
Not the least interested, he tells them
I have a much simpler stratagem.
What, pray tell, to just sit there and brood?
Look, they add, we don’t mean to intrude
But your gloom is seriously chronic.
He sits alone with his gin and tonic
Down it goes and he makes another
Thinking only of his wife and lover.
On the fifth gin he begins to weaken
If he wants friends he must go and seek them.
He decides to drive to the local bar
And order a fine wine and Arctic char.
He staggers a bit when he steps outside
And starts out on his bleary-eyed ride.
It’s dark now and the road is winding
The oncoming lights blurred and blinding.
A final blinding light ends his life
In that crashing flash he sees his wife.