If a twopenny game is truly what it is, why do we cling to life so tightly,
and what compels us to bring yet more players? Could it be nature’s fault
for imprinting in us this insatiable thirst? Even so, greed is our own breed,
nurtured over millennia among the volumes of sonnets that fill the shelves
of the slaughterhouse.
How far have we come from the caves
of Altamira, Lascaux, and Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc
to the pit on Mare Tranquillitatis—or how little?
In a way, it’s ironic that we plan to live in a cave
again, although the moon is no laughing matter,
since we like to think we’ve grown over the millennia,
even if in the end it’s just demographics.
hidden pilcrow 