MY FRIEND JACOB

    went into mourning for three years

lived alone in the mountains

and twenty miles from town.

It was Nevada City. Where she left him

   and continued, remarried

divorced

kicked around the bars a little

when she decided to come back

   Jacob woke up  his old self and put on his lucky shirt

the Hawaiian one he wore on their first date

and holding wild flowers all day

he waited for her.

She never saw the shirt or the flowers.

On the dirt road back

a half mile from his ranch

she hung herself.

What is that rope

the one that comes out of the darkness

refuses happiness and jerks us

out of our innocence.