when they say your name
has died—
after every false
prophet out there
eye-witness-testifies—
after the government
files are
declassified
and you learn,
as the tide turns,
that God
was never
on your side—then
you might know
how the horror film
heroine feels:
like the black hole
at the center
of the universe,
or the last one
which vicissitude has
deigned to leave alive—
not out of grace
or compassion,
but as a plot line—
as test of her capacity
to look head-on
at the epiphany
as it dawns
in her mind that,
this whole time,
the calls have been
coming from inside.
