you must only look to
the dead and the dying
when you are
the dead and the dying

you must only yearn
for dust and dry bones
when you are
dust and dry bones

sand for the parched throat
and sun for the blistering skin
stay out of the water
stay out of the shade

for you are not like you once were
you are other now and we cast you out

life is a pixelated dream

moving languid past my eyes

as though across a distant screen

but I am pleased to be a witness

to the creatures dancing unevenly

beautiful shadows before me…

what a heart there

lying on the kitchen floor,

nearly tripped over it

walking by –

“who’d go and leave their heart laying out like that where it could get all crushed and broken?”

so I picked it up

and left it on the counter

and covered it with a glass bowl

to keep it safe until the owner

could reclaim it and put it back

where it belonged.

there comes this time
like the inevitable wave that rolls in,
like the inevitable wave that rolls out;
this absence of a presence,
this presence of an absence;
and we are lost in the crowd,
and the crowd is lost with us.

i cannot accept the undesireable exorcism
that casts out life and lives like scrap,
rolling toward the end of the conveyor belt,
dropping piece by piece to the crucible,
to be forged into nothing;
at least nothing worth while,
just spare parts without me,
without you –

empty bits for the next universe.