Without Significance

The beauty of anonymity

you were a drop in the bucket

a speck, mote

flea

on the back of an elephant the size of two galaxies

it was your wedding day today, your marriage with death, Lethe, the underworld

your contract was up, Earth had other tenants it needed looking after

you would die in three hours, and your sudden disappearance wouldn’t change a thing

not the nuclear arms race

not the inhuman inequality

not even the timely manner the amber’s leaf twirls off the branch on this Autumn Thursday

or the dramatic untimely landing of the dying bee on your sun- soaked balcony as it lay curled up in a little ball, half-ecstatic, half- exhausted

not a single detail would flinch or wince at the faint sound of you giving up the ghost at 3:33pm sharp on this uneventful Autumn afternoon

the evening train would still run on time carrying its full load of tired passengers returning to their city flats and their little pets to eat their leftovers and scroll for soundbites

in that eternal search for a bit of lyricism, or

grace

famished for one small bite of poetry to interrupt their nine-to-five lives, to startle them into a moment of awe or reverence —

unfamiliarity

before snapping out of it to re-enter the well-trodden groove of sleep-walking —

showering, dishes, the teeth, alarm clock, sleep, the teeth again, oatmeal, morning train, the charcoal gray office lobby —

how can I help you today?

the mask, the voice, the script, on autopilot

like a bird who doesn’t pay attention to how it flies or that shoots from limb to limb like nobody’s business

the whole machine would move as expected, so well-oiled, like clockwork

not even the sun would have the decency to stop and mutter a three-second prayer for your afternoon passing, and the birds wouldn’t notice anything odd either

so just know, when you drop, you will drop right on time, neither too soon nor too late

there will be nothing to see

© Carlo Zeno 2023

“Why should we still project and plan, we creatures of an hour?” — Horace

“Where death is waiting for us is uncertain; let us await him everywhere.” — Michel De Montaigne

Thanks for reading and thank you to Franco Amati for providing this space for poetry. For two recent poems, check out the below 🙏

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