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?
from Good Poems for Hard Times selected and introduced by Garrison Keillor
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