ARGUMENT FROM EGOISM

Tell me, if you 

know: when a cell divides, 

in what sense 

can it be said 

to "survive?" 

Can one realistically 

turn into two 

without the former dying

and both of the latter 

being wholly new? 

And even if they were 

to recall 

the formerly recondite 

parent at all, 

what good would that do 

to the soul of the old 

mother protoplast 

whose now writhing 

and flailing her 

flagella in hell? 

Who among us would choose

at will to reproduce 

when to regenerate 

is to violently 

bifurcate identity—

to puncture a hole 

in the wall 

in the lung

of what was—to suffocate 

self, and to die? 

PERPETUITY

You pledge everything—

your life* for my kiss—and don't

mind that asterisk. 

DENOUEMENT

The best gift of all 

would be to retain at the end 

a child's mind at sunset—

to leave the field of light 

without explanations, fascinated 

by all we've just seen; 

but "how?"We don't 

care. And "why?"

We don't know yet. 

Would we could be, 

when night comes, 

who we were then:

head a room of treasures 

whose costs we weren't meant 

to understand, 

waiting to be held,

to be flown off 

to bed, to be told 

whom to kiss,

to say "yes" 

without regret. 

ANODYNE

A lot of longing 

goes away.

Like a bruise 

or a headache, it hurts 

but could be worse.

It's a little bit 

of it that is 

the real curse—

how it tarries 

and endures; 

the way you tolerate

and counter-

balance. It's a tail 

you can sway 

but never 

can lose, because 

a little longing 

stays. 

SWEET BY AND BY

On a long day, 

all the traffic lights 

change the wrong colors. 

On a sad day, 

there's a purplish tinge 

to the white puffs of clover.

On a lucky day, a bad feeling

melts like spun-sugar 

in your transparent saliva 

instead of getting 

kiln-blasted 

into the hard gems of fact.

On an ordinary day, you miss 

the bees and stamen 

consummating their marriage

and making honey 

that looks like 

dawn light together—

and some dark as amber, 

depending on 

which weeds proliferate

in that particular mile 

of the old carpool lane.

And all of that time,

in the back of your mind, 

some part of you longs

for the stasis of heaven—

even though, after living 

through all this, 

one must admit 

that the colorfast hereafter 

sounds

like a letdown. 

SACCADES

Because we look 

so hard with eyes 

so jumpy, 

it's easy to miss 

what we really 

find spiritual: this universe 

is like a cathedral—

it's most beautiful 

when it's empty. 

In fact, there is 

so much nothingness 

we could never take it in 

or bear it all away. 

at the end 

of the day. And yet, 

emptiness 

can't be nothingness, 

since it fills us 

and describes existence. 

"It means little, though," 

you want to protest, 

"without that dust mote 

of Love over which 

vacancy prevails."

And that's all you can know 

on Earth (as they say),

and all you need 

to know, I agree—assuming 

you're okay 

with taking life pass/fail. 

AFTERS

Everyone lives 

for dessert 

if it kills them.

And so everyone dies 

in distress, and it's 

beautiful—

but the reason 

for this is so saccharine 

and simple,

 

it was never written down, 

and has long since 

been forgotten:

when stripped of all 

but its desiderata, life 

is a tray 

of baklava—there's just 

the honeyed 

light of day

and the buttered moon 

of night, punctured 

by the gravelly 

friction of fealty, 

and wrapped 

in the mellow-but-

frangible blankets 

of our fellow 

diners' company.