9

which is anywhere at anytime or maybe a time and place limited
by whatever contextual information
I have dreamed up and placed here.

To be certain, it is not Mars, it is not 1670
nor is it a trillion eons from now,

when everything has reached its peak expansion
and has contracted all the way back to the very center
getting denser and denser until it must explode

and a shabby indiscriminate performer on the subway
swears that this will happen, proclaiming loudly that when it does, causality warrants that things will play themselves over again,

exactly as they were,
the only way they could be,
and the way they have been forever.

 

Refrain