Eyes Closed and Flat-Backed

All the animals out in the woods

Are losing teeth for the greater good,

And signing up for the next great flood

With a ship that’ll save.

 

I’ve got broken hands and a snare drum heart,

A marching band shaking my bones apart,

And the cadence doesn’t begin but start

To stretch infinite both ways.

 

I’ve got kids in class making sense

Of all of our impermanence,

Advocating the elegance

Of life in a cave.

 

We’ll wear fine furs and paint on walls,

And we’ll hear the poetry in all

The rhyming words we can’t recall

That defined our younger days.

 

On the rock where the straight line bends

‘Round where the vault of heaven bluing begins,

The stars wink out, fall, and then

Lie dead in their graves.

 

I remember the way those passed stars felt,

Eyes closed, flat-backed on childhood hills,

Thinking that only time can kill,

And only love can save.