Since There’s No Time, Let’s Take It; Vestigial
Since There’s No Time, Let’s Take It
Lie back, bear left, and kiss me counterclockwise.
Pay no mind to what control freaks say
about time flying, rolling on. It dies
when we do, far as we’re concerned. Don’t rise
to the wrong occasion! We’d better not delay
our sleeping in. Lie back quick. Clockwise
we lose. There isn’t even time to prise
the death grip of last year off of this day,
shoo the flies from these fresh rolls. Time dies
when it’s up. Lie low. Better to scan the skies
for falling clocks than hope for time they pray
is left. Quicken sleepy when’s with why’s
and look, Time’s fly is down. We’d all revise
the future if we could, but who’s to say
our time will get one? Babe, that rolling die’s
long since cast. Time’s clawing at our eyes;
our mouths have been parenthesized. But stay,
still lovely, and lie back. Let’s be wise
to time. Kill it quick before it dies.
Vestigial
When finally I’m fully weaned from need
and both arms can let go of all embrace,
drop to my sides—no longer really sides
but flanks propped up with nurses’ expertise—
when I’ve had enough, and shove away their plates
full of beans and futures; when I’ve left
both now and then behind, at long last drained
of smiles to seek or to bestow, bereft
of self, of anything to want to know
or do; no crises but the lack thereof,
nor further obligation than to feel none,
and no more pains to take, or take care of;
then will my yearning for you leave me too,
its ache expired—but halfway reinhaled
like the last, hiccupped sigh of a child held,
sob-exhausted, at his mother’s neck,
giving up his grief before it’s through.