Looking back,
some would say
we're obsessed.
But it isn't quite like that.
We were told
when we arrived
that wealth
would be plentiful
just as water
was wet—
that we'd live
to be much older
than our parents' generation,
just as soon
as we re-bolted the gate,
undid
every threat.
So we check,
and double-
check,
and triple-check
the locks;
we circle back
and look
with microscopes
and magnifying glasses
for the faint shapes
of the arrows
which we know they
must have
humanely painted
on the floor of the maze
before they left.
Now, the thing that
we're desperate to find
we cannot shake,
and what we want
to hold most
we cannot possess:
a life which
at once feels both penetrable
and safe.
