Later Work

No one’s ever working harder
Than on a gurney or under

An overpass, in a shelter.
That’s where you should look for authors

Who can speak to you in whispers
Lungs make trying to live longer.

And as for the famous authors,
Those works of theirs you call later

Are almost always earlier,
Usually by months or years,

Than the really final labor
Of the wordless within culture.

Late Work

How do you decide
When to quit working?

No one really does
Quit while they’re living.

Living is working.
But some can pretend.

Others have to work
In order to eat,

And some think they should,
Since they’re too afraid

Of what will happen
On the day they quit

Pretending to be
More than surviving.

The Bottom of Things

There’s the floor. Well, there’s a floor,
The artificial flooring
Of a typical dwelling

For this place in this era.
Two people walk around it,
Talking over some events.

Two cats pad around as well.
Money went into this floor.
Labor went into this floor.

Design went into this floor.
Habit went into this floor.
Culture went into this floor.

Language went into this floor
Unimportant and ignored.

We Bargain for Our Lives

But for the words, Adrienne,

The point of writing really

Is writing, of speaking is

More speaking, signing signing.

The point of even thinking

In words for words is more words.

You just have to be convinced,

By your mother shouting words,

By your old friend, not to toss

The ones you replicated,

The ones you call my language,

Or was it my diaries,

In your poem about almost

Tossing them all in the trash.

The Latest Invention

A new app insists

Via its slogan

That, Humans deserve

To know the truth. No,

Not really, you don’t.

If truth could be known

Based on who deserved

To know it, that would

Be defensible.

But truth is never

About just deserts,

And humans prefer

Lying anyway,

The way sports fans preach

Playing great defense

But really attend

Mostly to offense.

Humans invented

Truth, and invented

Lies, and invented

Distinctions between

The two of them, and

Which is more purely,

Truly invention?

Spiraling

Maybe the ant queen likes her life,
Well-fed and nearly motionless
Sedentary fecundity.

Maybe she feels power in her
Unbounded creativity
And loves her own monstrosity.

The artisan cranking tchotchkes
As if his hands were factories
Finds a steady satisfaction,

The pleasures of being able,
As he sits in his tacky shop
At his overcrowded table.

Haven’t you noticed the cosmos
Riffing endlessly on spirals?