life as
a flight from birth
to death? no.
take birth
and death 
as givens, as 
constants, not as
origin and destination.
instead,

life as a reed
bending to breeze and
eddy in shallow current.
life as slender
moment.  life as 
curve adapting, life as
hollow waiting to be filled,
life rooted in one place,
topping in another.

it’s no journey, really,
if there’s no way to understand
what was before and 
what will come after.

It’s uncomfortable 
some mornings
to be alive and hurting
with a broken belly full
of unloved 
but necessary
food.

If this is healthy eating,
give me a gut full of air
and call me ungrateful 
for my privilege and 
relative ease.  
Tell me again

how many go hungry,
tell me again
how my own illness
is self-inflicted,
tell me how glad
I should feel right now
to be alive and here
in this body,

and I will tell you
that shame and guilt
for feeling such anguish
when I should be above it all
are fueling
what’s inside

where pain’s pain,
death’s death, and 
all I want to do
is make a swift
common cause
with the worms
who do not care
who any of us are
as long as
soon enough,

we are theirs.