Like the present?
Good things come in small packages:
like a needle
hidden in a haystack
or up a sterile white sleeve

Then a small cube of ashes
scattering in the wind like seeds
multiplying like bacteria
Weak skeletons of flowers
cavorting in the opium fields

A time to be born and a time to die
A time to kill and a time to heal
A time to keep and a time to create
more empty beds
for the economically and socially pragmatic

The age of microwaves:
beeping of the heart monitor
says you're done.



~Julie Harwood