You’re Not Left

Or again, this is
The beloved world,
And you are all both

Orpheus looking
Over your shoulders
And Lot’s poor wife,

The refugee torn
From her only home
Turning for goodbye,

In any case cursed
For your natural
Sense of wish and loss,

As Boethius
Imagined himself.
Life, the beloved,

Life, your home country,
All you’ve ever known,
All your body craves—

That life is wicked,
That this world’s the one
That should be called Dis,

The true underworld,
That to stop living
Is peace for matter,

Peace for the atoms,
Freed from longing, which
Is, in the end, just

Life longing for life,
For further longing,
Purest addiction,

None of that changes
Your longing itself.
You may be aware

Of your awareness
But you’re still a beast,
Poor monster of life.

The curse is the prize
For the body cursed
And full of longing

Aching to look back,
While it’s awareness
That pays the real price.