national poetry month, day 15

I sit here perpetually inventing new people as if the population boom were not enough and not enough terror and problems God knows, but I know too, that's the point. Never fear enough to match delight, nor a deep enough abyss, nor time enough, and there are always a few stars missing. I don't want a new heaven and new earth, only the old ones. Old sky, old dirt, new grass. Nor life beyond the grave, God help me, or I'll help myself by living all these lives nine at once or ninety so that death finds me at all times and on all sides exposed, unfortressed, undefended, inviolable, vulnerable, alive.

Nor life beyond the grave, God help me, or I'll help myself by living all these lives nine at once or ninety so that death finds me at all times and on all sides exposed, unfortressed, undefended, inviolable, vulnerable, alive.