Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Tony Hoagland read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes..

Good bye again. Say there is a little song in my head

And because of it I can't sleep or change my mind
About the future. Now the song runs all the way down

To the beach where I sit as if the sky

Were my room now. No one, not even you,
can hear me singing.

As if the music rose from the mouth of the ocean.

Like rain before it reaches us.
Like wind twirling dresses on the clothesline.

Who has no one has
the history of the ocean.

Lord, give me two more days. So that
The last moments may be with someone.

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