Something with a Lifespan
How many times
should I look at you and should
I change my life?
Monarch you make
your orange assent to death.
And how much dexterity
can you really teach me?
Does your courage
even map onto these
worldly obligations
to friends, my job, desire
for a little affection in the late
hours of the evening, etc.?
I can't put myself ever
in your head.
But I can lie
on your wing, with my left eye
letting my right dart forward
as you do.
Don't ask something
with a lifespan
how to change your life.
Ask something you can't
believe ever lived.
Copyright Credit: Katie Peterson, "Something with a Lifespan" from Permission. Copyright © 2013 by Katie Peterson. Reprinted by permission of New Issues Press.
Source: Permission (New Issues Press, 2013)