Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity
The ground is littered with used paper face masks. I want to shake this person and that person and tell them, “You can’t be lost in your own world all the time.” But, of course, I won’t. A purplish darkness creeps over the city. I stream a movie about an international crew of astronauts on a journey to the cosmic womb. The ship malfunctions. Their sanity frays. They slowly turn against one another. Something out there in space is acting like a hulking bouncer who won’t let them through. If they knew what I know, they would just chuckle. A month from now my daughter is having a daughter.
©2021 Howie Good All rights reserved.
Howie Good is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including Stick Figure Opera (Cajun Mutt Press), The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press), The Trouble with Being Born (Ethel Micro Press), and Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing).
Brief and sharp. My favorite style of writing.
I remember Sam Jaffe as Dr. Zorba in the old “Ben Casey” TV series…At the start of each episode he would draw the symbols on a chalkboard and almost chant, “Man, woman, birth, death…Infinity.”
Brief and sharp and to the point.