“No poems about copious blood in the urine,
tumors as big as a chicken beneath the waistline.
We’ve long since found these truths quite evident.
Life has never been in remission or rehabilitation.
Life doesn’t sing those homely words we invented
to blind our eyes to this idyll of metamorphoses
which can include unbearable pain and unbearable joy.
Death by starvation or gluttony are but a block away
in some cities known to us for their artifacts.
Today I regretted closing this lowly stinkbug in the gate,
feeling the crunch of it beneath my foot to push it on.
My heart must open to the cosmos with no language
unless we invent it moment by moment in order to breathe.
A girl in a green bathing suit swam across the green river
above which swallows flocked in dark whirls.
She swam toward a green bank lined with green willows.
The guiding light of our sun averages half a day.”