Human Meaning

Stark – staring – terrorized: blank
screaming eyes abut some
unseen unavoidable abyss –
a clip flicks by on Turner Classic Movies –

channel surfing bifurcates attention
yet again – then splinters it
to tiny sharpened bits: familiar
savage shards that an appurtenance

of consciousness in black-and-white
from time to time permits – film noir
version of the unexaminable soul –
the thing that eats it up, its blackest

hole: life-addled lean ex-convict
speeds inside the shiny lumpen coffin
of a Studebaker: crudely takes us
to the ledge, the edge, the brink,

past which we will not, cannot, think.
A dear friend’s mother, ninety-nine,
lies in a Southern California
hospital – confused and sweet

and working out of reflex for each
breath – probably not crying.
There are no words for death,
and precious few for dying.


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