Beautifully, cruelly,
day or night; everything we do—
every discontented
face we make, each false move
and every negative gesture, each hair
we carefully slick back in place,
each border we tug on
and tighten like a bootlace,
each graceless moment spent contorted
in the honorable distraction of prayer,
each cruel guillotine
ceiling fan cycle we bear
before knocking more softly
on that closed bathroom door—
every one of these carefully
choreographed negotiations
is cast in the ambient light
from every single star
which has ever existed
and which ever might.
So I'd think peace on earth—I mean
the real kind—might require
a little more
than the end of war.