No past tense permitted
—Kay Boyle, “A Poem for Samuel Beckett”
Darlings, this may be the only
great escape we’ll ever make:
go forward dropping your past
behind you—seeds,
kernels, to be pecked up
by scavengers.
You’ll never find your way
back. Or try this. Package it,
mark it WAS. Store it
in a locker
at a Greyhound bus station.
Leave the door ajar. Let
a thief inherit it. You can bet
it will dog him like it dogged you.
Step smack-flat into
the blasting present,
your heart beating now now.
You feel neither the pain
that is over, nor what waits
tapping its hard foot
up ahead.
And now, stand up the future!
Let it go on pacing and cursing
as it peers toward your whereabouts
and the cat’s eye
gleam of its watch
calculates
the lateness of the hour.