When we first wake,
if we're fortunate,
we are granted, perhaps,
one minute
and dimmest light
and innocence;
when our calcified grief
over things
we have done
is mistaken,
in our stupor, for
the heavy pall of sleep
and the fathomless morning
spread out before us
is a sweet, unblemished
conversation
that's been carrying on
flawlessly for ages
without us—
and as soon as we can
pull ourselves
together enough to think
of a purposive way
to insert ourselves into it,
that's when
we notice: the minute
is gone.
