from “Histoire de Florida”

Whatever, whatever.
Wherever, what-
ever, whenever– It won’t
be here anymore–
What one supposes
dead is, but what a simple ending,
pain, fear, unendurable
wrenched division, breakdown
of presumed function, truck’s broken
down again, no one left
to think of it, fix it, walk on.
Will one fly away on angel wings,
rise like a feather, lift
in the thin air– But again returned,
preoccupied, he counts his life
like cash in emptying pockets.
Somebody better help him.

–Robert Creeley, Life & Death (1994)