Some Questions

Who first asked it?

The sand or the footprint,

the remembering or the forgetting?

 *

A house, a door, an hour—

which is frame, which picture?

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Where found, old grief-joy,

your salvage-yard windows and shutters,

your emergency, your emergence?

 *

Me, you / us, them—

What

molecule cell creature

came first to feel it?

 *

Was it painful?

 *

How came separation to chisel,

to cherish, to chafe?

 *

Hammock of burning carbon

life wove from,

hammock life slept in,

unraveling—

did you find us useful,

interesting,

comic?

 *

Will you miss them,

the cruelty and hunger,

the manatees and spoonbills,

awe’s inexplicable swaying?