To last forever, someone I love tells me,
I must get inside of things.
I try to explain that I want out.
What business do things have running my life?

Driving downtown, I reach a sign that says DO NOT PASS.
Fine, I think, I will rot here,
and rotting comes so close I can feel my organs dream about decay.
Muscles fray slightly, longing to seep into some more vivid life.
All day the spiderweb between the bathroom mirror and scales clamors of gravity.
And a fingerprint on the wall convicts me again and again
of reading the daily news. These things collaborate, saying my name.
It never occurs to them to speak of themselves.

Only sometimes, I awake from a reverie I canÕt remember,
less of a coming to than a might have been.
At such times, I know among the scatter of car keys, receipts, and dust,
is everything IÕve ever lost.

A Book of Other Days, Arrowood Books, 1993