op. 130, Cavatina

This is not the first time.
Not the last, either. We will spread
our butter over our bread thin
until it scrapes out and all we have
left to spread are our shadows.
We will spread them, too,
until we haven't any left.

We will run
the shadows of every
piece of cork board, torn movie stub,
and rubber band onto the earth
and then into the earth until they,
the heartbeats of our worlds, cease.
Are no more: these things like the footprints
of God go on.

And in the fourth minute
of our lives, when everything has been said
and what hasn't been said has
been heard, at least, all will wait in silence
for the violin to wander the new earth
we are leaving behind, searching our pockets
and deeper things also. Hear the violin.
Your pockets, your fingertips, the scar
you etched out of sidewalk. Isn't it