nor disown
one’s own,
and because the same is
doubtless true
of time and history,
I suppose I cannot think it
altogether bad
to find oneself
at ground zero,
the children in your arms,
my arms, night
possibly just coming on,
and so
the baby tired,
fussy,
almost asleep,
asleep,
panic perhaps pulsing
about us,
or dulled disbelief
along every hectic roadway,
shop windows smashed,
abandoned cars
pointing every which way
down the now
vacant streets, as in
some science-
fiction movie.
Meanwhile,
the four of us
would sit on the bed
or upon a park bench
near the pond
where ducks
still
sport themselves,
squirrels busy
in the grass,
the fallen leaves,
the snow.
With what is to be
so beyond comprehension,
everything would remain
somehow
terribly everyday,
the wind
through the sycamores,
the sun setting,
the sky coloring,
then paling,
or storm clouds rolling in,
until
a millisecond later,
nothing is.
No time even
for pain,
for crying out,
for thought.
One moment
to be
intensely,
the next to be
nothing
at all.
about to accomplish
what we
have always wanted:
to disappear
completely
together
without a trace
forever