HISTORY OF POETRY

This is just how it was: numbers—

it was always only numbers—

little ones first, flailing and falling
in larger and larger numbers, 

through holes in older fatter uglier

numbers; landing on piles 

of broken spines of smaller 

fallen leftover numbers. A contradiction

perhaps, but that was just how it was:
it was the rhythms of their falling—

over time coinciding,over time over-
 lapping over time cracking open,

hollowing out, creating space
for the declining rhythms of their rising.

That was just how it was;

and so, now this is just how it is—

an accumulation of vanishing,
a great contraction,

a thing that shrinks and compacts
as it's stacking; it's all just

so much nothing—but nothing was

ever so satisfying.