Shepherded by bad luck,
you fall through a mirror
once you have it,
or rather it has you.
Even if you survive
{or at least they kindly
keep your body alive}
you can’t unsee your own mortality,
its constant shadow
ghosting or taunting you
from your peripheral vision
depending on how
you feel that day.
You play a little game
of peek a boo
with eternity,
hiding from not seeking that
uninvited friend.
Though you give it the finger
it remains intractable to the end,
a column of black soot
stuck in the corner of your eye.
Your one and only wild and precious life
up in smoke……………………………….
the life that cradled you,
like a babe in a treetop
unrooted, uprooted,
til you are
rocked by every wind,
and you begin
falling, falling,
falling
over and over again.
The brief life you still expect,
becomes a rehearsal for death.
And knowing this
you still can’t help
wasting your bit of time,
obsessing about its end.
Then something turns inside you,
or outside,
and you are shaken
like a snow globe.
Something maybe
like grace,
whatever that is,
shifts
and one day while struggling
to make the bed
you are suddenly
encompassed
in a bubble of light,
like a domestic diva
held to the threads of life
by the turning of sheets.
Knitting up
your fractured world by
the simple goodness
of housekeeping
you used to resent,
resist like the plague
or cancer,
now tethers you
to this side of the earth
for a while,
to a world
which still makes
no sense,
but at least you are
in it…
Then a feeling
like a mother patting her womb,
and you her aged child
soon to be expelled again
into the mysteries of life.
But this time your hard edges
have been smoothed by the life
you weren’t aware
of living
while worrying
about it ending
too soon.
