Afterword

It won’t be long

Before the careless brush

Of a hand

Will tip over

This tall pitcher of a universe

That holds everything

In its dark belly.

And the crash

That follows

Will be silent

Because there will  be

Nothing for it

To echo against.

And the sudden emptiness

That we will feel

In the pit of our stomachs

Will inverse and occupy

In a monumental vacuum

All that surrounds  it.

We will all be reduced

To empty bellies and

Nothing to feed them.

No way in

And no way out.

And the giant hand that

Tipped the pitcher

That holds the last of

The blackness

Under its fingernails

Will tickle them

In the perverse idea

Of a joke

And we will laugh as we weep

In the helpless submission

That we fell in

As we believed

That the hand

Will always provide

Even if the universe was

Reduced to empty bellies

With no she and he

To fill them anew.

But what will remain are

The thoughts you thought.

For they were empty to begin with.

And the words I wrought

That were light as air.

So stay hungry and

Store a thought in your belly.

That occupies one dimension

But survives the death of

All the rest.

So that after the

Pitcher spills over

And washes away

The last of the blackness

There still remains

The  faint glow

Between our bellies

Of the hunger that made you

Think of my presence

Of  the hunger that made me write

About yours.