It seemed to be dancing, just out of reach,
But in fact it was dancing me, through me,
Was me, rendering me nonsensical,
Reminding me of being a word belonging
Equally to simultaneous hundreds of millions
Who were also me, when they thought
Of themselves. It was the lone mosquito
Dancing near my ear and crushed by a slap
After an afternoon of pesty flies beside
The withering wildflowers. See? Flowers
Were it, too, and by withering they brought it
Closer, closer, but that must have been just
A trick. Its approach was never more than
Hypothesis, as if it existed ahead of itself,
As if it remained stolidly, almost politely,
Waiting for me to arrive, knowing It would.
It wasn't. It was everything else, everything
In the meantime, the jagged sing-song
Of a species of bird with no name for me,
The calculated roar of a motorbike down
The unseen road where scattered memorials
Testified to how previous cyclists had died,
The memorials again hinting, almost, almost,
Getting closer, but not it. It was the air
Rearranging millions of cubic meters of itself
As easily as a sighing body turning in bed.
It was the dropping angle of the light, tips
Of trees going dark, twig by twig. Almost,
Almost, closer, closer. It was the drop
In temperature, the worry about getting back
In time, always in time, not out of time,
Never. It was the indecision in the blood
While the massive conglomeration of small
Lives lived on as industriously as ever within
The foundering body that was their home.
Foundering, almost. Closer. It was not there,
However, not quite, not waiting in the trees
Or on the road or for the lone mosquito
Or in the heart of the body, song of the bird,
Angle of the light, the atmosphere of repose.
Almost by definition, it was not. It was close.
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