The Door

Still, why do I feel so responsible

for the wailing from shattered houses,

for birth defects and unjust wars,

and the soft, unbearable sadness

filtering down from distant stars?

Don’t be afraid.

A boat will be provided.

After the boat has foundered,

after you’ve reached the shore

despite the foundering boat,

after you’ve met whoever’s waiting,

who loves you (possibly),

after you’ve entered

the part that I can’t see,

I’ll tell your story—

your story that was once so graceful

but now is dark.

That’s what I do:

I tell dark stories

before and after they come true.

The future will be both better than the past

and worse

Why these boxfuls of ruin?

Nobody cares who wins

Did we cause this wreckage by breathing?

we were born with mortality’s
hook in us, and year by year it drags us
where we’re going: down

And so we stand on balconies and rocky
hilltops, and caterwaul our best,
and the world flickers
in and out of being,
and we think it needs our permission. We
shouldn’t flatter ourselves: really
it’s the other way around.

Anything can become a saint
if you pray to it enough—
spaceship, teacup, wolf—
and what we want is intercession,
that iridescent ribbon
that once held song to object

Whatever
made us think we could change the world?