in the present
sounds defensible
enough, but
in practice,
there's really
no such thing
as that tense.
Try as I might
to gain purchase
on the current—
by declaring, for instance,
that I am of the Earth,
and always with
the breath of its
silty wind, I sing—
I still cannot help
but wail
about death
with the loam in my
throat from before
I was born.
Not to mention—
those glowing moments
in which I hastened
to make my nest
all dying too soon
of their own
poor confusion—
that carnage
of each passing second
only proving
that existence
was not
but an artful
delusion.
