Facts of Life

for Ruella

You don't have to stand in the street, six-guns
glinting high noon sun; you don't have to be
American, sixteen and angry at the teacher.
All that we do, living, is killing; birth
and death the pumping hearts of life.
What's born is born from death. Every cell
inside us, every cell that makes us; skin
of our faces, facing each other with cells
falling away, cells rising: lips, eyelashes,
cheekbones dying, being born.

Beyond these facts of life, involuntary
cellular facts, what counts is the voluntary
thinking creature living beyond fact,
inside metamorphosis. Crucial in moments
of transition (all moments being
moments of transition) is that inside
the taking and giving, you are conscious.
You are responsible. You know.
So when you decide to open the bottle,
count pills out with your fingers, turn
up the morphine with your thumb,
switch the electric current off - or on,
push the plunger of the syringe,
shoot straight fast into the body
of someone you don't know, release
the catch of the bomb bay, cut down
the field of ripened rye, pull off
all the berries, pluck the reddest apples,
cut the throat of the biggest ram
or the smallest lamb, close the eyes
of the very old dog, the senile cat
who slept years in the curve of your back,
you know. You know everything.