The Stick

Existence trumps nonexistence every time. It has

all the colors and all the shapes and all the moves,

it is rude in its bounty and its grotesque reach that

overcomes all before it. This bit of stick I found in

the park was showing off because the dead can’t have it.

They can’t have any of it. It was sticky and prickled

with a showy, dazzling presence, though it’s quietened

a little now, now that I’ve taken it home

and have it here on the mantelpiece. It has dressed

in purple robes and carried its being like a chalice

with such disarming mock-solemnity down and down

the pale carved steps into its candlelit depths.

Its being rests inside it now and purrs quite inaudibly

with a sound like the most exclusive refrigerator,

or a sound you might take for your own sovereign

wheels spinning. Little stick. Wait for me. I’m coming.