sic vita est (such is life)

that i hang from you like a baby sloth between
your back and the corduroy armchair and put my
ear to the hollow between your shoulder blades,
listen to the soft beating of your heart! you are
alive, and warm, and i am alive too, for i am here
listening to the steady rush of the blood in your
veins, from the heart beating in the center of your
chest, not left, not right, but center. and that
when the kettle draws out into an adagio on the
piping stove, neither of us stands and leaves the
warmth of the fireplace, the chair, the
you-shaped me-shaped thing that does not
define as a thing at all, and the kettle will play its
viola solo in the kitchen. we will listen. and that i
tilt my chin sideways to the paint peeling on the
ceiling and stare at perpendicular hedgerows
just beyond the window, then see it is raining,
raining on glistening cobblestones, and now
it is the might-have-been hour between day and
night. glistening! what a word. everything could
be glistening and we’d never notice. but then
such is life, you tell me, sic vita est!

Image: Le ruisseau serpente (Brassaï)