Obits

A hundred years from now we’ll all be dead.
Meanwhile, let’s be this mayfly in my room whose
whole life span contracts into today.

What will we make from our hours before midnight?

There. I’ve spread the wings we kept concealed.
We’re out the window, our past one second passed!
We’ve never seen a backyard in such light—all the
shrubs saints, and each one in nimbus,

chancels of clouds stained glass, each tree a spire.
While our breath lifts us, wind inside our wings, what
will our landing be, canyon, iceberg’s peak?

I have to choose some sure extremity

where together we can lay our egg today, not
the same site as yesterday’s—no, no, 
yesterday’s mother dead, oh, mother, o