Company
On my bed the preacher speaks eloquent prayers
to solve what problems arise in his small town
while at the kitchen table a swamp girl throws
an unsuitable lover over a tower to his death
In my study a woman left on a doorstep as a baby
meets a sister brought up by their mother
while in the blue room a grandmother’s small house
is cleaned and repaired and painted and made new
I meet others at the market, a man trying to recall
the history of where he taught when, and some
with opinions and scandals and judgements,
one has new glasses, another a new wife
People I knew once, and loved, or hated, or was,
are in photos on screen grouped and labelled
by computer technology, that classifies even
the animals and makes sense of who we all are
Who lives on this planet is DNA, that expresses itself
in permutations, combinations, that starts and stops
and starts again, each unit alive in its singular being,
glimpsing, but never quite clearly, totality, mystery
On my bed the preacher speaks eloquent prayers
to solve what problems arise in his small town
while at the kitchen table a swamp girl throws
an unsuitable lover over a tower to his death
In my study a woman left on a doorstep as a baby
meets a sister brought up by their mother
while in the blue room a grandmother’s small house
is cleaned and repaired and painted and made new
I meet others at the market, a man trying to recall
the history of where he taught when, and some
with opinions and scandals and judgements,
one has new glasses, another a new wife
People I knew once, and loved, or hated, or was,
are in photos on screen grouped and labelled
by computer technology, that classifies even
the animals and makes sense of who we all are
Who lives on this planet is DNA, that expresses itself
in permutations, combinations, that starts and stops
and starts again, each unit alive in its singular being,
glimpsing, but never quite clearly, totality, mystery