Somewhere out there the world must have an end. - Wisława Szymborska

I’ll never find out now
What A. thought of me.
If B. ever forgave me in the end.
Why C. pretended everything was fine.
What part D. played in E.’s silence.
What F. had been expecting, if anything.
Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well.
What H. had to hide.
What I. wanted to add.
If my being around
meant anything
to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.

"Under a Certain Little Star"

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity in case I’m mistaken.
May happiness not be angry if I take it for my own.
May the dead forgive me that their memory’s but a flicker.
My apologies to time for the multiplicity of the world overlooked
each second.
My apologies to an old love for treating the new one as the first.
Forgive me far-off wars for taking my flowers home.
Forgive me open wounds for pricking my finger.
My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the
abyss.
My apologies to those in railway stations for sleeping comfortably
at five in the morning.
Pardon me hounded hope for laughing sometimes.
Pardon me deserts for not rushing in with a spoonful of water.
And you O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage,
forever still and staring at the same spot,
absolve me even if you happened to be stuffed.
My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs.
My apologies to large questions for small answers.
Truth, do not pay me too much attention.
Solemnity, be magnanimous to me.
Endure, O mystery of being that I might pull threads from your
veil.

Soul, don’t blame me that I’ve got you so seldom.
My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere.
My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and
woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me,
because I myself am my own obstacle.
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and then labor to make them light.