Breathe Delicate Life

While you can still manage it, Breathe deeply of delicate life which Condenses years into memories; Life, an antique music box, where only the high points Haven’t worn down to nubs yet. While our attention was elsewhere, changes came: Our bodies stolen by practical jokers; Our flesh made into hanging curtains Supported only by gaunt twisted curtain bone- rods; Rusty wire –sinewed claws rubbing our Haunted ghost- eyes rolling around unfocused, Looking backwards inside us instead of out. We walk tilted, cockeyed with the awkward weight Of the unbreathing, soon to arrive future non- existence: All our sentences prefaced now with “I was” and “I used to” Days we sit staring absently at nothing in particular; Waiting for the next train to arrive; Waiting for it to not come yet. Wondering if we will still know the language there. If we will be loved by any there, and even If it turns out that it is the black brick wall they Sometimes hint at, somehow it seems better Than the endless, chill whiteness of the featureless horizon. The old turn into bored children at the last, And those in turn into embryos perhaps, Just waiting. All of them waiting to be born.