Porous

I’m staring at this page because I need to put something on it,

Something about how I feel, maybe, or something about how

I don’t feel whatever it is I’m supposed to feel, some coldness

In my heart, some absence at the core, my skin bulletproof—

Or is that my soul?  Where I touch the world, at any rate.

And how the world touches me—I hold a star, a stone, a bird,

A tree against the sky and marvel that we share a moment

Of infinity.  But there’s the terror at the heart of awe:

That moments end, and star and stone and bird and tree

And even sky and even me.  Every death is my own,

Something lost, never known or, worse, forgotten,

The burden of memory slowly eased until there’s silence

Where a voice was, void after void punching one into

Another, coolly emptying me.  What it is not to be . . .

This is where I close my eyes, the monster I will not see.

5/24/2023