Status Updates From The Cipher

Mothers are supposed to be terrible
and you’re supposed to love them,
you have to. Starlight is useless,
and that helps.

Recall
the three billion years there was no death: bacteria
splitting infinitely. Then in needing each other
concretely, looking down at their nakedness,
they began to eat someone near,
and die. This story is also in old books.

We hurry
along the tough moment

then the next

then

the past cools
and hardens

and now that’s all there was,
the hurrying,
it’s a

sediment you can weigh in your palm
or toss