When it’s not there, everything’s normal. Days
              prowl or scamper, swim howl or play dead
              with an animal’s pure regard for surfaces,
              no sense of absence, nothing underlying.
              A cut thumb merely bleeds and stings
              and a squirrel’s pushpinned eye is a curious thing.

Then it comes, or I do, into the world where
              there is no being without it. A doubling
              murmur in the heart’s chamber
              twins all things with their sordid nature.
              It rips you right in two. Careful, friend,
              which one of me it is you’re comforting.