Back and Forth

You sense it, too, don’t you? Life
Is both too short and too long.

Ask the bored kid in the car.
Ask the old man on death row.

Ask the grunt in the trench, ask
Who you meet next, who you know.

We give it. Some have it ripped
From them. Some know what it is

To take it. No one knows what
It is to lose it. To lose

A face well loved, that we know.
We know life’s loss from this side

And then, while we wait and fade,
How long it can be, and slow.