Farewell to the First Person

Like a child, my “I” goes forth, like a ghost.
And in times like these, her poverty shines bare,

The monosyllabic beat
Making her less rare creature than amputee

Or stroke of dark, twig
That should grow and leaf

But can’t
Lacking the voice that could house

Our wreck of an age.
Oh shortest piece of music, Vowel of the West

Illusion dissolving in rain—
But the “we” too much, and the “he” and “she”

Too remote to name the flooding in
Of spiritus, trapped bird

Bumping the walls that thinking built,
Wanting out, and if

You were a bird,
Wouldn’t you?

The planet is dying, has a pronoun said that?
And maybe it will save itself, if we’re lucky

And maybe it will breathe in its disrepair
A wind rising from the once-

Ample glade that the “I” forgot when the virus
Of consciousness set in.

To write and leave the person out
The words rambling untethered across the page, nosing into the woods

Of their own accord and finding the shade
That they may in their secret lives aspire to, woods, words, words, woods

Un-subjected at last, redeeming the sadness of earth,
That everywhere river.