Then sadness came upon them. Memories of love
or sorrow, favorite cats, barnyard animals,
dirt where called for
and all the appropriate longings, lusts, self-pity,
even rage at some tyrannical lapse of manners
over Chinese food-just so each chosen beam or ray,
each this, each that, so special and unique:
Grandma's ribbon of Kansas whalebone,
hedge clippers from the root cellar
of the dazed horticulturist. Time passes. The years
groove one by one round the garlanded Maypole,
and the presence of natural totems
bears a significant impact on the order of our lives,
dew-struck daylilies dieseling skyward,
the beauty of the crab apple tree against a derelict wall,
each fruit a form of grace or an admission
of human frailty. You're the MSG in my shark's fin soup,
but I yam what I yam, sweet potato.
The rage of our days rises like lobster claws
doused in fake butter
from a seafood restaurant chain,
but in the end, dancing, we unfasten
our rainbow suspenders and lie down with death,
mongrel death, gym coach death
tossing dodgeballs of extirpation, turning somersaults
of grief on misery's wrestling mats. Everything passes,
rain dissolving a lost box of cough drops, so many
Dutch Apple Pop-Tarts in the heart's toaster oven.
Things are like that. We're like that,
alone together, ignorant of shadows as cardamom
or star anise reveling in sunlight,
wild seeds blind to the spicer's approach.
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