How It All Comes Out
April 23 2010


We laugh it off.
Died in bed,
shot, at 91
by your lover’s jealous husband.
Or hit by a bus
as befits a man so humble
— proletarian, and sudden,
no long decline, no suffering.
Or the maiden jump,
sky-diving
to celebrate your hundredth.
Not for nothing
they call it “terminal velocity”.

All your life
you wonder
how it all comes out.
If you were a whodunit
you could sneak a peak at the ending,
check for sequels.
Or will it be a short story, instead?
A brief intense existence,
with so much left
unresolved, unsaid.
Or a poem, a song, a pledge,
all elegant compression and verse.
Learned by heart,
because remembrance confers
its own version of immortality.

Or perhaps a slogan, a jingle
a curse.
“May you live in interesting times.”
“May you live to a wise old age,
where the greatest burden
is having nothing to bear.”
“May you live so it feels like forever,
with no one to love
or care for.”

You’ve always wanted
to go on living,
and now it’s yours —
the misfortune
to get
exactly what you wished for.