Appeal to the Void

We can make this life thing seem

a pretty dream—see the back

of a quarter: the state of Arizona

encapsulated by an idyllic sunset splashing

its rays across the Grand Canyon, cacti

scraping the sky;

Washington, stern and grave,

his head turned from the symbol

weighing the gravity of the illusion:

this majestic desert is desolate

and barren, this golden sunset

silver—and yet all this

but a quarter, and

at the same time

all but a quarter.

It’s all pointless, you say—

but what of the space

between the ears that hear

these undulated utterances

and behind the eyes that see

these figures, these encrypted dances

where there was once morbidity—nothing—

where now postulates the possibility

of something?

Is this not the very tale

of our origin

or, perhaps, some small-scale

repetition, all bound in the nothingness

of a circle?

Bound, yet freed of its edges—

so yes, it’s all pointless.

Like a coin. Like any heavenly body

dimmed or illumined

by death or gravity.