An Eye on the Evening

Still here, that old reason

To wait for what comes next

Louise Bogan explained,

Putting things well enough.

Maybe you’re hanging on

Or think you’re a fighter,

Survivor, but you’re not

In charge. It’s why the old,

The really old, seem so

Surprised. They hadn’t meant

To decide. Life towed them

Alongside. Here they are

Again, blinking in sun

Or lamplight. Some of them

Do depart earlier,

Before their cells are done.

That’s harder, honestly,

Much worse than mere surprise.

The accomplishment’s not

The mind’s, in any case.

Wake while you’ve still got some

On any given day

And think, still here, breathing,

That old reason to wait.

The Rapid Molecular Acquisition of Oxygen

To Carthage then you came,
Acquiring oxygen
En route, on arrival,

Every which way but loose.
Autobiography
Is a strange consumption.

You should write one. Then write
One about writing one.
Then one about that one.

And so on, catching up
In briefer and briefer
Intervals to the end,

Zeno’s arrow of self,
Until the last volume
Covers the life you spent

Writing your umpteenth life
And reaches this moment,
No bigger than a poem.

Training Montage

Half a billion tons of cows
Wander around the planet,
The winning species by mass.

This is domestication,
The weird teamwork of creatures
Linked into dependencies.

Three or four hundred million
Tons of humans, a couple
Dozen million tons of dogs.

Things are getting organized.
The Earth is getting ready
For something, laser focused

On aligning waves of flesh
To hurl a single blow. Where?
Ha. Like animals would know.