One

By reflex one
wants progress –
to believe that
gains, acquired,
will stay, so one

might then begin
to play, forgetting
all the sorrow,
strain and undertow –
the thunder blow

of random life:
the heavy thud
and stroke,
the untoward
poke and slice,

Existence’ bleeding
price. One tires
of persistence –
or one does
when one abstractly

cedes the source
of one’s experience
to something
howlingly extraneous –
some alien exerting

and exacting force –
some dark indifferent
genesis whose
course would seem
to seek distinctly

to divorce one’s
senses from
oneself. One acts
as if one is a thing
upon another’s shelf.

It clears up slightly –
feels more free
and true – when one
imagines “one”
as “me” and “you.”

.