This morning I sprained my back lifting a vacuum and, breathless,
remembered I am made of interconnected subatomic particles
that hate me and cannot wait to extinguish my little spark and
fly along their merry way into their next composition, the incarnation
of some other concept, a cloud nebula or a tub of
Kozyshack rice pudding, or whatever, and
now I am writing this poem in pain and in spite for them,
in a race to create a universe apart from the one of particles, where
I can place a flicker of light and it will shine a bit longer,
and who shall say which universe is the real one,
the one where a Eureka PortaVac 3000 ends me or
the one where an idea is held together in space and time by its virtues,
and where I am still here, still a breathing thing, and my eyes are smiling at you.