by Barbara Schweitzer
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| “Only Human,” painting by Judith Dawson. |
We are such little twisty things
protoplasm and cell productions
who eat turkey in November
and hotdogs in July
who love intensely our neighbor-in-bed
then plot coups with the Deplorables.
We are unthinkable most times
and dumb the rest
yet we climb and hope
and endure so that we might
not cascade into the smarmy oceans
we have made. We pick our way
so that we might reach an alp
and spread our small intelligences
like faraway stars into a universe.
We are just enough bare-boned and starving
to go on and on and on though we remain
still closer to slime than to god.
Barbara Schweitzer is still writing poems and plays and Cyjoe Barker mysteries in upstate RI.