As calmly as a hand will shake
another after shooting a gun,
a Skylark bends around a pole.
A speculator, you can’t remember
why you speed toward Dallas, strangling
a cell phone with your free hand.
My God, the way we arrange our time
you’d think we were born to die,
that time was endless, at least enough
to visit a museum. I’m sure
the driver never realized the pole
would be the last thing he’d rush into.
And like a thrush rushing itself
in the windshield in the dead
of summer, you’re still inventing
the final seconds, the act that shakes
the stage like a dying man’s hand
pocketward for the old
timepiece, as if this time
were retrievable, at least
compatible with all its pieces:
a wallet, some summer snapshots
byzantine in posture, stubs
for Mavericks, Stars. And in a sense,
we’re all stars in our own museums.
To lessen death by dying? This
is why we love spectacles.
The better to see ourselves.
And like the thrush waiting to rush
the glass, we’re here: in the pocket
of time before the bomb or shot
that forces the hands to beat themselves
senseless, as if pockets swallowed
our hands instead of arming them.