is all
in the past,
and the future is a blank check
which hasn't yet
been cashed,
yet we see
how precariously the present
is stacked
on a truly rhapsodical
Rube Goldberg machine
of unassailable contingency.
What could it mean
to be free
in this moment—
to bet against fate (as if
not picking
from a trick deck)—
when even the light
by which we squint to reckon
with such questions
is doubtless just the latest
and faintest
reverberation
of a ancient,
unwitnessed, and cataclysmic
explosion?
