desks look out onto windows

Friday,January 11, 2008 at 5:54 pm (Barnard Year 2 Semester 1)

drinking tea in the morning, wine in the evening

the gray mornings seep from the steam

the blurry lights form droplets from the bottle

both hard sucked for life that isn’t here

in winter barrenness and times alive here gone and passed

people hurting, people who stand strong

men who grew me up, falling like dominoes

and can we, the others, pick them up and set them right?

the strength of science windswept by chances and

the cold truth

that man does not conquer nature

that bodies do not conquer disease

that we are all dominoes in someone else’s game

and that it makes perfect sense that when one falls

from above we see the collapse over and over again

the question emerges from under the table

searing the black dotted landscape

will these hands set them right again?

will we ever make it upright again?