So Many Small Rock Slides Make a Cliff

The appeal of disaster
In the imagination
Is that all cares go at once.

Disaster and great fortune
Acquired suddenly have that
In common as fantasies—

The leveling of terrors
And anxieties that plague
Ordinary existence.

It’s easier to accept
It all goes into the dark
Than to accept a bad debt,

A hospitalization,
A divorce, a broken bone,
A car wreck on the road home.

You can fantasize great wealth
Or the end of everything.
You’ll get one, but it takes time.