Did you wonder much
about this when you were younger —
did you think hard about
where you would live and how
air would come to feel on your face
in your final moment?

If you are like me, you did not.
You worried about small things,
but never about
what might remain constant
and consistent in those misty days
when this past would fade.

Still, there must have been one day
when you sat under a maple
in you side yard, maybe
at sunset or under
a long shadow of your house;
four of you together or you alone
and immediate needs
slipped off your skin

until you were alone with
a future you, alone
or together
with different people,

and there were thoughts
and feelings and a hunger
and a thirst, a vague longing
you could not articulate —

did you long for it? Did you
wonder about whether anything
like this would happen to you?

It happens now, everything
in a rush, your tongue pressing
your teeth, your skin alive
with a sense of living, of dying,
one second of breath between
that moment and its recognition
as completion of your time
here and whether you are alone
or with friends or even
in a crowd of strangers

you will think back and say
oh…oh…

to yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T