Fixed
Oct 27 2008


We will finish our lives
you and I
with utter blank finality —
a heavy door swinging shut,
all the light cut-off.
There will be no children
to say prayers for us,
no grandchildren to repeat
our well-embellished stories
our outrageous lies.

The arcane business of birth
will remain a mystery to us both,
your hair stringy with sweat
your legs helpless
your body
torn in two with the hurt.
And me
watching impotently as the head appears —
as the small round pupil of hair, matted black
suddenly widens with surprise,
launched
into slippery howling life.

No, we shall remain dead-ends
biological failures
culled from the herd.
And so we must live out our lives
as if posterity depends on us —
writing feverishly,
embracing causes,
contriving our own
intentional family of friends.
And holding each other
like the last 2 left on earth
in some scorched post-apocalypse.

Where we will count on some other island of love
to carry the burden,
bearing the future
of daughters and sons.