This was always the plan. The day and hour,
of course, is out of our hands: Dickinson’s

Carriage Man; Shelley’s desert sand. Imagine
an untethering, a swansong reckoning. No

proofs in stone. Almost certainly, you will be
alone. The location, like an envelope you have

been carrying, will be unsealed – a wakefulness,
or a presence revealed: a man who taught you

to field ground balls in the yard; devotions you
fought and now whose storied part you want

again. Or perhaps in a chance encounter
with a schoolyard friend, a companion

you abandoned for the faster track, the slap
on the back. Our lives a history of what-ifs,

lighthouses somehow missed. The final exam
will not be timed. It will be scored blind.

The final exam will leave you among the living,
taking stock. Finishings all around; ashes still

simmering – and a threshold to cross. Your gift
if you use it, time: Gilgamesh, tunnelling trails

to a city wall; Penelope’s loom and an ever-
unravelling shawl. As for them, so you:

there will be threshold guardians – a forest
monster, suitors – reveals of the anima.

Look these guardians in the eye.
They are barriers to test your stamina.

.