the last time you tried to smile,
you were right,
to find that guileless mix
of gloom
and wild anxiety
leaking out
like freakish black light
from behind all the cracks
between teeth?
For it seems
we can never really,
really, really
be free
in a world
where even Einstein
went white-haired
and died
believing we would always need,
at least, these two great
and terrible things:
first, the space
in which to be it—
and even worse, the time
it takes
to feel a need.
