Appeal To The Void

by James Kwapisz

We can make this life thing seem
a pretty dream—see the back
of a quarter: the state of Arizona
encapsulated by an idyllic sunset splashing
its rays across the Grand Canyon, cacti
scraping the sky;
Washington, stern and grave,
his head turned from the symbol
weighing the gravity of the illusion:
this majestic desert is desolate
and barren, this golden sunset
silver—and yet all this
but a quarter, and
at the same time
all but a quarter.

It’s all pointless, you say—
but what of the space
between the ears that hear
these undulated utterances
and behind the eyes that see
these figures, these encrypted dances
where there was once morbidity—nothing—
where now postulates the possibility
of something?

Is this not the very tale
of our origin
or, perhaps, some small-scale
repetition, all bound in the nothingness
of a circle?
Bound, yet freed of its edges—
so yes, it’s all pointless.
Like a coin. Like any heavenly body
dimmed or illumined
by death or gravity.