Monday, October 9, 2017

NO MATTER WHAT

Whenever opportunity knocks, it's
complexity who enters;

inertia who seizes, and it's me
who never fails

to wonder—
whether real immunity (the kind

of liberty worth persuing) follows
from a life which is really

one long and unfailingly arrow-
straight hall—made

of white
enamel-painted brick, with

not a single curve
or junction—and with

absolutely no windows, doors or
access vents?

Whether complete freedom,
however counterfactually,

necessitates a perfect
prison—pure exemption

from decision? Whether I prefer
complete immersion

in a perfectly incontrovertible space,
where only the actual is possible?

Or—if what I really crave
are the built-in excuses,

if what I really need
is a little more room

to wobble? An escape hatch
behind a loose

brick in the wall,
a secret trap

door in the floor?—and further,
whether

the very circuitous truth
of my wondering

hasn't, in fact, already
dissolved the whole problem.