She woke me up at dawn, her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels. I sat up and looked out the window at the snow falling in the stand of blackjack trees. A bus ticket in her hand. Then she brought something black up to her mouth, a plum I thought, but it was an asthma inhaler. I reached under the bed for my menthols and she asked if I ever thought of cancer. Yes, I said, but always as a tree way up ahead in the distance where it doesn't matter And I suppose a dead soul must look back at that tree, so far behind his wagon where it also doesn't matter. except as a memory of rest or water. Though to believe any of that, I thought, you have to accept the premise that she woke me up at all. David Berman