Self-absorption has turned me

into a selfish alien. On Earth,

we live in isolation

waiting for the cosmic dawn

to return in a brilliant explosion

that would rock this rock like

a great song

performing on its uppermost

stage, all of my being

expanding like a flower

until the whole universe

opens wide

like a Great Eyeball.

Our role will be to find

inexpressible

connection — a ring

of stars passing rings

of fire, each a small

cluster of blue petals.

THE SOLIPSISTS

When I tell you of my existential crisis in the shower,

of being frozen in the rain of hot water and steam,

afraid of being alive inside a universe that perhaps has

only a limited number of consciousnesses to hand out

like a bowl of Halloween candy in the dim porch light

(don’t knock, just take) — why was I born with human

privilege? I could have been a beetle hiding from

soldiers in a country bleating with siren and flame.

Why this panic as I soap myself inside the pleasures

of plumbing? You tell me you don’t know if I exist,

and it’s funny a figment of your imagination would

be sowing doubt upon your own living. I tell you it’s

funny a figment of my imagination says the same, which

you say sounds like something an illusion would say.

We drink Lagunitas in a beam of window sunlight. One

of us will live forever in the simulation of our sandbox,

the black cat floating on the wobbles of my knees, purring

softly into dark sweatpants discernible from nothing else.