It is easier to wear the truth
on my arms
than on my lips.

Within our cosmic insignificance,
I find solace beyond shame.
Embracing my paltry value,
Accepting my humble name.

Do galaxies bother in human affair?
Have they halted the scourge
Or answered your prayer?

Indebted not to the appreciable stars,
Negligible dust in their golden eyes.
Existing above our earthen scars,
They see not your flaws, they hear not your lies.

"Ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row."
And he recalls the innocent girl
who lined up her pieces
to hedge one's bets.

The youth,
energy and volume
brazen nature of the naive child,
where does it find shelter
when ribbons unravel
and the dress floats to the floor?

And the lingering thought
of sweet Jane,
maidenly neighbor
blameless in her caution,
"knocked him out"

Where is the chasm of adolescence
and when do we cross?

Today is the anniversary of someone's death,
Someone mourned by widow and son,
Someone who's legacy has faded into the ether:
a man, a woman,
a child.
And what eulogy is spoken by grieving tongues
for the dead who's legacy
has evaporated from memory?
They have died once
a breathless body, cold breast,
and once more,
when their name,
a devise of their mortal anatomy,
is spoken for the last time.
But they are remembered, not by name,
or kindling memory,
but in the fear of darkness,
the prayers to our ceiling and
the bitter taste of sadness.
Spirits reflected by the very anguish
that ripped the facade of life
from their throats.

We fear death for two reasons:

pain
and
forgetting