Down, Down, Down

Down, down, down I sink,

past the worms and the ants and the beetles,

the milky-eyed rodents and fish;

down past the grass’ reaching stalks

and the ancient, tired trees’;

down past the grave of the woman before me,

of her mother and her grandmother

and the other sunken bones of their legacies;

down through the centuries and battles

that no one cares to remember,

through hunching spines and shrinking brains,

teeth sharpening, eyes dulling;

down, down, down I sink,

weighted with spare change and exhaustion,

and when I reach the bottom,

down in the dark before eyes were invented,

finally, finally, I can sink no more.

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