Around the End

It’s never forever, whether

You want it or whether you dread

More than anything that it might

Be. It’s too long, or it’s too short,

And you can’t bear it, and you can’t

Bear the thought that it will ever

End, but it will, either before

You or after you or with you.

Certain small pieces of writing,

Whoever wrote them, however

You first encountered them—online,

In an overstuffed used bookstore

Stinking of mold and sweaty dust

In a small town in Nevada,

In the library you haunted

As an unacceptable child—

Stay with you. You get the feeling

They could cling to you forever—

I can’t believe this terrible

Loss of my thinking—Assadi

Quotes her beautiful grandmother

Aware of coming dementia,

Her beautiful, sad grandmother

Struggling, to ambiate the pain.

It’s like a letter from the front,

The final signal returning

From the event horizon—this,

This is what it looks like, this view

Of the self as it vanishes—

And then it vanishes. Your mind

Hovers, hangs on to that last glimpse

Vouchsafed you by one you never

Did and will never know. That’s true.

Never. Forever, no. Never.