A marble-white close-up of the past-cum-future hybrid,
cast as a cross between muscular torso and horse’s ibid,
or else as a simple grammatical “was” and “will” in
the present continuous. Cast this thing as a million
boring details! in the fairy tale’s hut on chicken
feet! Plus. Ourselves in its chairs—to cheapen
the sight. Or merged with those whom we loved, or loved to
merge with on horizontal sheets. Or in the nubile auto-
mobile, i.e., as a perspective’s captives. Or willy-nilly
in the brains gray recesses. Cast it out loud, shrilly,
as a thought about death—frequent, tactile, aching.
Cast it as life right now mixed with afterlife where, like eggs in
a string bag, we all are alike and equally petrifying
to the mother and who, sparing its yoke the frying
pan, flutters up by the means of our era
the six-winged mixture of faith and the stratosphere.