This Is the Earth, After All

There is nowhere safe to go.
Long lives get distributed
Probabilistically,

And probability shifts.
If you’re lucky, you’re lucky.
No rampages through your town

By shooters running amok,
By soldiers, by colonists,
By ruthless secret police,

No earthquakes pulling down walls,
No cyclones ripping off roofs,
No wildfires encircling homes,

No floods washing towns away,
No droughts drying out the wells,
No plagues of swarming vermin,

No viral pestilences
Leaving streets strewn with the dead—
And still you could be murdered,

Could die in an accident,
Be mauled by a startled bear.
There is nowhere safe to go,

And yet some of you will die,
Maybe most of you will die,
Elderly and quietly,

One at a time, from old age
Related disassembly,
Probabilistically.

This is still Earth, after all,
That wears its lives like a shawl
Draped loosely on round shoulders.