It seems unlikely that so much literature
could be made from twenty-six letters.
Doesn’t it seem it could all be boiled
down to one sentence?
After all, the entire volatile cosmos
seems to circle and spin and rotate
so you’d think round and ellipse
were the only shapes possible.
You’d think a square was an ungodly
fluke, an aberration, not the life force
behind writing tables and scaffolding.
Not the product of a natural human math.
The kind of math that says: if you
are sentenced to be hanged
and the rope breaks in the middle
of your hanging, you are free to go.
Such a sentence, though uttered
without error, doesn’t say what it
means: life may be a circle, but death’s
elliptical, swinging and missing.
Criminal, hangman, judge, and witness,
each matchless and speechless. Why say
anything, ever again, after such luck?
Why not shut up and run?