There are too many cops in this city. I hear them buzzing through the night like blue bottle flies. I see their blue light in the window— a flicker like the screen of this TV we bought together. I’m watching a show right now I think you would have liked: a farce about a cardinal who dreams of singing opera. A clergyman, that is—not a bird. I mostly watch on nights when I can’t sleep. I suppose I must find the voices soothing. At least I’ve largely got my health. I’ve got my Independence. Just last July, I went and sat alone out on the balcony— watched the bombs bursting in air, like every bouquet of my youth. The next day, sitting there again, I read the morning paper. I learned that not one block away, a mosque had burned the night before— stray firework, the city claimed; I hadn’t even heard the sirens. The balcony was very high that morning. Soon, when my time comes, don’t let them strap me to a gurney. Don’t pour in wax to stop my ears—don’t bind me to the mast. I want to hear you singing by my window in the smallest hours of the dawn. I want to slip when the light is soft.