the next breath
From Texas & New Mexico: Selected Poems 2015-2025.
near the end
Dashiell Hammett was a hermit,
his house was a mess,
falling apart, and Lillian Hellman
had to take care of him.
all those books,
especially Red Harvest,
and near the end
all he cared about
was the next breath.
this is how we end up,
little matters except
living through the next minute.
nobody
replaced Hammett,
nobody could.
there are libraries
everywhere filled with books,
a million books,
five million, ten million,
many without purpose.
all the while
the universe churns
outward toward final resolution.
fire will eat
the classics and non-classics alike
reducing everything
to a final breath,
an exhausted sigh
and star dust.