Life takes me here, carries me here, to the center
of this red dot on an otherwise hushed map of sherberts.
I melt to it.
I get five hundred miles from a life, want a cookie,
want life to deny me the cookie I cannot deny myself.
I am carried like an infant
to the next sugar-stop, say thank you for asking
which is as polite as I can manage.
In another centrific dot, not polite at all.
In another life, one would fold one’s arms like a black raincoat
and stoicly wait for sleep to arrive
on its right-yawning baggage carousel of the satisfied.