Lament for the Living

We feel them walking over us in their intolerable shoes,

knocking down our stone doors. And what

would they have us do—come outside?

We will not afternoon among the pigeons,

who loiter like blanched old men in a sauna,

moaning "arrgargahhh" but meaning to say

"shut the door" but meaning "let this day

end me." [

]

                                                           Overwrought? Yes.

But this is just one tunnel through the story,

and it is not the one that leads to some outside

that is sweet and green. What if we had known

we were in the last five years of our lives?

What a relief! To look around and say

how fine it is, to awaken in the cracked sun,

to knock back a berry into our mouths

like a large and living pill! To have two

and a half years to eat before our time is reset

into a new measure of halfness. And it goes.

For decades we split ourselves across the longing

of an asymptote, until one day we reach down to wipe

and we're putting our hand

                                                           through a ghost.

And then it becomes intolerable. Like fruit salad —

a grape disguised in the juices of a cantaloupe.

We leave behind a dotted line, and all these people!

They follow it like a map to heaven,

when all we meant was "cut here."