Nikki died not from a car crash, but from turning her back on love. She turned from Lael and from me. The wages of turning from love are death, but let them who know true love turn to it with all their hearts, and theirs shall be eternal life. I don't hate her. But in the here and now, in this season, the leaves are green and the flowers fresh-bright.
Death comes soon enough.
There's nothing to be afraid of short of that. Elegy for an athlete who died young, ode for a love that died stillborn. What a life it would have been. And so I sail on to the next port. But I don't want a woman in every port.