it's okay
you won't run out of pens
and you won't run out of water
and you can always wash your shoes.

after the last classroom door shuts
and the last vine on the building droops
and the last office closes
and the last marriage is called off

after the last refrain of metal-music
after the shower over roma, roma
when the supine Cum clauses
make you flopped, bedside and dumb

there are always opportunities left

you can learn the worth of mud
and how to curdle milk
and cook spaghetti
on saturday evenings

you can pummel Daos in the wood
collect the logs
stay warm with vino Thalliarchus,
and Chuck, the Bud-man.

this, all this
none of it mattered.

you can run out of your pen
and you can look up at the sun
walking out of water,
casting off your shoes.

we are that which lies under the stars
on the knife edge
between mars and venus

mother sun!
our one lover,
lighter to our
weary cigarretes

propellor of turbines
and maker of sight
will you help us see now?

'cause this is the time of our crisis

and we are they who lay beside the road
and drank lemon soda
watching it pass.