“To Peter, who has been elsewhere.”

This, the inscription from Mark C. Taylor to me in the copy of Field Notes from Elsewhere: Reflections on Death and Dying. In his book, he writes of his own near-death experience, and where it brings him.

“After such a journey nothing, absolutely nothing, remains the same – everything must be reconsidered and reevaluated. Family, friends, foes, colleagues, values, ideas, work, play, success, failure are no longer what they previously seemed to be.”

I toss my apple core aside. The ocean is different today: frothy, like the aftermath of a storm.

My daughter has died, and I am elsewhere.

(My drawing, puke-yellow and green; all teeter and fall.)