Toulouse-Lautrec Reflects

"In the jungle they feel neither pity nor revulsion.…”
(attributed toToulouse-Lautrec, "Moulin Rouge", 1952)

Animals are tender when
hormonally they have to be –
and brutal and relaxed
and terrified on similarly
autonomic cue: so it devolved
into the situation which obtains
between what once will have been
me and once will have been you:

to say we ever chose one thing

between us is to fly against
the only verity I know: whatever
exigencies make things stop
and go, whatever intricately
fluid causes and effects
and nuanced repercussions
of the flow that we all like
to think are the expression
of a finely honed, intended art

are not. But: how lucky to be what
we are! Barreling out from
a dying star, we cruise, entirely
equipped for everything except
a real capacity to choose.
Which either means we can’t
not win, or always lose. But look,
my dearest curiosity! – either
way we’re off the hook.

.