Three or four mysterious forces without which

we would not be here

none of us

without which
the universe
would not have come together

nothing

so

they must be there

they must always have been

there

the forces

without which

nothing

none of us

Of all the things

— the mastodons, the stallions, the candles, the mascara,
the mammaries, the mutations, the vibrators, the
medications, the hairiness, the cameras, the indoor plants
and the cedar wood, the suede shoes, the eyes, the wild
bottomless eyes, the moon in them, their precision, the
anger and fits, the bunions, the strength of your grip, the
smell of horses in your nostrils, the question mark in
your ears, the labyrinths of silence in your day, the
laughter too, its bigness, and the sad tombak of your
heart, all reverberation —

of what made you up,

there were also some four octillion seven hundred septillion

and    one    or    two hydrogen protons

to a great extent

you were made up of hydrogen protons

   everyone is

For a period
there was nothing
more fundamental

now there are three quarks

quark
quark
quark                                                              the seabirds call

no one knows what a quark is
or what they are up to
or what they might be made up of, if they are made up

of anything

the way we are made up

and held together by three or four mysterious forces

and dark energy

that thirteen point eight billion years ago

give or take

brought together three quarks to make particle soup

Time slipped by.

Four hundred thousand years later

protons got together with electrons
to make the first atoms
out of the force of attraction

out of love

and a promise

they
would not be separated, even when forced, even at a distance,
even as photons, even on a dead cat’s whisker, even when in
Tibet, even when dust on a butterfly wing, even in storms,
floods, fires, eruptions, in ashes even, even in hate, at the end,
ever,  even  never

then gases

and it’s a blur

supernovas gamma ray bursts electromagnetic waves planets
fire earth mountains water cells sugar DNA bacteria
whales and fish trees flowers petrodactyls turtles snakes DMT
mosquitoes yellow bees red cardinals lions baboons
Neanderthals tumors you and me and nuclear bombs
and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines

and     ooooooph     what a different order to come into

under the skin

the cosmic goings on

going on

all the beginnings held

lifelikenonlife

in us

protons spinning
with the giddiness of those who come out of nowhere
with moment
and charge
with energy
with radiation

your body

passed down unseen
through
vulvic folds of time

this vastness
you feel acutely

when you are given

two years

to live

two years                                                      to die

two          two          two            two

count it in years then count it in months days hours — two —
minutes — two — time that’s left and time that’s passed are part
of the same body of time — two — this way and that

grammar falls apart

we make up the tense of survival

the future terminal

prophecy

makes a new kind of body

places
in it the ticking

Ya

it comes down to this

time

you in it                                 it beyond you

until you learn
how to walk
on the other side of time