The Edge

Here and there, the edge is dense.
Here and there, it’s torn and thin.

If you think of it as thought,
It has a dark charm to it.

If you think of it as lives
In a torn net, as the trash

That spills out, as the raw place
Where kinds of life rub up hard

On old webs that burn and fray,
Then the dark charm tends to fade.

So it has to be with names.
Each time one seems firm and set

In its ways, with a wide gut,
If you look, you’ll find it frays

Where it bites at its own edge
Like a child that gnaws her nails,

A dog that chews its fur bald.
The edge is in each and all names,

A loose hem. Take life, big fat term,
Take it out to its edge end—

Is that bug life? Is that germ?
That worm? That word? In the end?

The One That Got Its Way

The far side of the world
Is just a flight, for now.
It could sink in the sea

Soon, for more lives on lives
Than all the lives were spent
When there was no world there—

All those lives when the worlds
Thought of as far and strange
Were in the skies and clouds,

Or in the ground, or off
The edge of what eyes glimpsed.
That world then was not round.

It sprawled out, like a cliff,
Or a tree, or a string
Of small lands on the seas.

Now it’s curled in our nets,
And we fret. We feel strong.
We’ve caught it, the world,

But it gasps. Will it die?
Or will our ripped nets rot
For years, once it’s swum off?