the yearn, the search, the have, the hold, the lack;
this day, this hour — never coming back —
the atrophy, the entropy of time:
the dessicant emerging from the slime

the highway, with its stories, and its lays:
the coupled and decoupled — all the ways
we tangle and untangle, yet to find
the wall of separation that’s our mind

the moralists who make sense of it all
by hectoring to answer to their call;
yes, what they fight is evil, wrong, a curse —
but what they’d substitute is even worse

the kiss that’s never shared can still be felt,
the magnifying glass, still prone to melt,
the broken keep their bruises as a shield
for new crops may yet grow in that old field

the highway cavils with me now. it says
the best of plans is nothing but a guess,
the best of us are little more than air,
and everywhere’s as good as anywhere

but bare feet in the cold do not beat socks,
and children love to build with colored blocks,
and causes may be poor, but must be fought,
and we can never be where we are not

the forest and the desert and the sea
all stand to council or to welcome me:
there is no shame in knowing we’re all fools,
or that we gather tears in little pools

that shrink beside the vast expanse we find
along with bits of trash, and orange rind,
where humans come to forms their little hives,
within the theater that we call
lives