X.J. Kennedy
Suppose your life a folded telescope
Durationless, collapsed in just a flash
As from your mother's womb you, bawling, drop
Into a nursing home. Suppose you crash
Your car, your marriage—toddler laying waste
A field of daisies, schoolkid, zit-faced teen
With lover zipping up your pants in haste
Hearing your parents' tread downstairs—all one.
Einstein was right. That would be too intense.
You need a chance to preen, to give a dull
Recital before an indifferent audience
Finally slow in jeering you and clapping.
Time takes its time unraveling. But, still,
You'll wonder when your life ends. Huh? What happened?
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1 comment:
from Good Poems for Hard Times selected and introduced by Garrison Keillor
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