looking back,
that you truly begin
to suspect:
all that time
you professed to spend
being in the moment—
from the movement of breath
like the ripples
on water,
to the double-edged
fantasy of
having no tomorrow,
to the collapse
of all space
into orderless infinity
and the man with no head
who sat smoldering
at its center—
none of it,
not even
the most
rainbow-luminous,
consecrated fragment
was ever
as instructive
or precious to you
as the story
you then felt compelled
or empowered
to recount
about it later.
