The Deep Dark
Someone told me there are more connections in the human brain
than stars in the known universe. But a synapse
wants me to disagree. How many stars are there
anyway. How many stories are hiding
in the jowls of our dead. The afternoon
is a fist punching my heart. Tonight, I’ll eat my breaths for supper.
There is a tunnel of emptiness ahead and behind us. Pessoa said
it’s the dead that are born, that we’re sleeping, that life is the dream. I’m saying
I don’t want to be part of forever. Eternal recurrence
is an apple forged into a scalpel and I don’t want any more tall tales.
All six billion of us are drunk on hearsay. Time
is a long strange finger pointing to the moon. I mean
my grandfather is 93. Each day and every night
he sits in a brown chair, with a blanket if it’s winter,
watching TV and eating with his false teeth that click and grind over
whatever he tries to swallow. Sometimes he calls me just to say hello
and I don’t always answer the phone. He is more alone
than anyone. How many more suppers
are waiting on white plastic trays. How many televisions
are holding the hands of our lonely. How many million hands. How many million stars don’t we know. If every connection in our brains
were equal to a breath, how far would that be.
I’m tired of the facts. I’ve been believing for a lifetime.
Originally appeared in Poetry Miscellany
