While swimming in the river
I saw underneath it a river
of stars. Only there was no
river: it was noon. You can
say the sun is a river; you
can argue the stars back it
like shirts behind a closet
door; you can say the earth
holds us up with its weight
or that it means well or it
means anything.
There is no
closet, nor door; there are
no shirts hanging anywhere.
There is no false wall that
leads deep into the earth’s
bowels, growing warmer with
each step. Warmth as a con-
cept has ceased to make any
sense. In contraposition to
cold, it might, but cold as
well stepped out last night
and hasn’t returned.
Last I
heard, it went out swimming
and might’ve drowned. Trees
were the pallbearers at the
funeral, the train was long
and wailful, there was much
wailing and gnashing of all
teeth–though there were no
teeth, no train, no funeral
or prayer or trees at all–
nor a river underneath any-
thing. There was nothing to
be underneath anymore.
Look
around, and tell me you see
something. Look around, and
tell me something that I do
not know. I know, more than
anything, that the world is
always ending. Behind that,
there is nothing, save that
there is no nothing either.
Nothing somehow still turns
and flows past us, past all
time and beyond it, a river
returning, to its forgotten
origins deep within itself.