The cog in the eye turns
Until there is nothing left
To discern. I sip tea
Steeped in a kind of lust—
If I say I am, you are, he/she/it is . . .
We don’t have to agree
But it requires, to mean,
A common rubric.
The clock reads the time
Because we set it. I mean,
How else? Who is anyone
Who is anyone?
The grass edges outline the grave:
Get to living!
Copyright © 2023 by Charif Shanahan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 27, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.