there were two birds
and one ate the other
but the bird survived
just now the one bird
can only do exactly
what the other is doing
but with their wings the same color
and their beaks the same shape
species the same
flight patterns the same
there is now no distinction
and no one knows how often this might occur

could go a lifetime
never asking
could never trace their step or hold up the thread
of ourselves through everything
friends and chapters
we cherish? we let them in? Let out even our littlest wish?
we let them know? we shake the feeling
that we have wronged them. That we hurried through it
that we wished to be on the other end
of experience however small or wonderful
how ever we hope the show would suddenly stop
and some holy city would crush our home
and be suddenly better – infinitely better
do we hold friends to some concluding paragraph of some page in some chapter of our unfortunate lives
do we string the sentence along
and push punctuation down enough to think this could be in
finite could be in
different to time // could be in
our blood to last forever just
not like this not in some forever state today not wishing we were on the other end not wishing we could see the other side
all settled into our eternal place
maybe trapped – we’ll see – if we can hold the reigns
enough to break a piece of it to
sting a little and let up a little all in one present
but then let go in some instant even faster than it came to let us wish to let us
drip our souls into unhappy spaces
and then lick us up in less than a quarter of a second
so that time is the true friend
to give us what God invented
the infinite irregular change and chase
from need to need all gone and arriving
without extra silver spoons or linings to go around
just absence to absence to meeting to absence it’s clear
we have what GOD wants so no wonder He came
no wonder he left his changeless infinite space
to suffer the same unending, ruthless, brutal, and lively and unforgivable change.