‘Designed to be devoid of purpose’: Poems that aver that we cannot fully possess our lives

Endling

‘and our little life rounded by a sleep.’ — William Shakespeare

George, you carried your shell – like all of us –

A bag on your back

To pack your fears, life’s Rosy Wolves.

As you oozed backward to the end from the far edge

Of the Big Bang, your one foot the pillar on which

You laid your body like a bridge,

And slowly circled the terrarium,

Darwin must wonder what was your crime.

The stars smelt in their bloomery.

The fire from the elements forged your mouth, anus, eye;

Threw in the complete set, the penis and the vagina,

Turned you hermaphrodite, god knows why.

As the last night fell, you were still looking,

Under grass and stone, for a mate,

In perpetuation of the line –

The future: the leftovers from a date.

If you were your cousin, Aspersa, you might have been