and strength is a pantomime of courage
played for the lights of a burned out marquee
before an audience eroding one by one—
some decomposing where they sit, the rest
just rising to forget they ever came.
I smile proudly at the bug,
cradle it in a sheet of paper
and set it gently down
on the ground outside.
“And how are you doing?” I want to say that I am not doing. I want
to say that I am existing; instead, I just exist. Like things just happen.
I exist the way you remember to breathe – out of habit.
Art alone
compensates. Statues
of bearded psychotic warriors, not even legend.
He killed Abel
because it seemed
the only answer
to all that went unquestioned.
The grass in the yard was thick and scratched my ankles
and in summer it was too hot even under the palm trees
but back inside Tom Selleck is young again, gliding across
the screen, and you are in the kitchen, and I wish it would never end.
I'd hate to say,
“It was all for nothing”
But the truth is:
“Nothing is all it is.”