We perch beside the Hudson in July, its muck and legendary light, and you tell me how summer makes you crazy. That if you ever take your life, it will be in this month, before it gets so hot you can’t think straight. It isn’t odd for us to discuss death this way. We’ve both walked with it for years, pushed it off the path when it got too close, grabbed for anything that might buoy or pacify. You once drove onto a golf course at night, hooked hose to exhaust, and slept. Connected to you, I coughed CO₂. Now we watch a barge move silently past the tiny spit of land we both love. You may own the river, but Senasqua belongs to me, I tell you. You don’t mind. Your soul’s magnanimous. You can slip into the river anywhere, you remind me, but I know you love it too much to cause it grief. Like a lover, a fisherman, a fish.