“I am a little weary, and tired of this journey
                                                            called life.”
                                                                       — Julie de Lespinasse to Condorcet

The Laboratory of the Encyclopedia

Define just what you mean by ‘life’:
the discarded linen of angels?
a broken figurine cradled in a child’s arms?

Or a delicate instrument housed within a flawed case
that vibrates as the score shifts from mourning
through defiance to that last irreversible backward glance.
A metronome counting heartbeats like coins
so diminished in value they’re nearly worthless.

Is ‘life’ the creamware pitcher, or is it 
the tattered Chinese roses your maid will empty in the street
with the chamber pot and the basin of blood?

Perhaps it’s that elaborate origami bird
your lover brought back from his travels:
unmaking itself fold by fold
until it becomes once again a smooth blank page.

Life
sluicing through the body like a gold-flecked river
through a sieve—