Shove

This is bogus too: this poetry, this
posturing. And so is love, and so is
holding love at bay; and so
is that violent hammering,
the inquiry of science.

Break it to bits
and get to the smallest bit. Look far enough
and look to the beginning of time.
Nonsense. There is no smallest bit, and
there is no beginning. Superstition. Poor
giddy lovesick trembling ape. The truth is
you have vanished already in the effulgence of doubt.

All you want is not to die; not knowing
that you're already dead. You dread nothing more
than losing what you never had. But suppose I die?
asks the rotting corpse. What if I get old?
frets the mummy. Let us whisper in their ears:
listen, dear, you're swarming with maggots already.
Your wrinkles are so old they've turned to paper dust.
What do you think you have to worry about?
What more do you imagine will happen?

This already is the disaster. The worst
has come to the worst, push has come to shove;
You are death dreaming from the coffin:
you are suspended in dissolution.

The clouds rise and topple, breaking slowly
over vanishing shores of air. This is it. This
is what being buried alive feels like:
like the green savannahs opening up
when we shivered at the edge of the trees.