EXAMINED LIFE
 

Meditation augurs failure. To huddle inward
means a station missed, cuffs uncaught on thorns intended
to present the rose, Charybdis hidden under ponds
of Monet's lily pads, under love too foolishly
professed. Had the world been cast for our amusement,
our enterprise and lust, we'd never heed our minds,
their interruptive voices like a mother's call to milk
and softened sheets, the bed from which we would not wake.
Our eyes would glide through blurring vistas, purposeful
but willing to be lured if new transgressions meant new
sight. Now every vantage snares us, words set words in chain
reaction through our heads until associations
blunt to proof, intentions dress as acts: a severed life
packed and waiting for two cabs. Configure it this way:
the rain mists lightly on a street, our minds wander.