How Much, How Long?

Two questions pervade,
Need answers,
Require attention and the straight story,
The short of it,
The point of the tale,
Quickly cut to the quick,
Dead to me,
Long time coming,
Too short in the remembering,
Cuts perfect ice,
The bulldog gets fed,
Day by easy day,
It gets easier to lie to yourself,
To go ten yards out the way,
Overshoot the mark by overthinking the problem,
Lope backwards over your own synapses long enough to get tired,
Tired of the whole thing,
Knowing that if those supply ships had got there just a little earlier,
The whole goddamn deal would have turned out different,
And yet and still,
Those questions sit unanswered,
Rotting on the vine,
How much, how long,
What you need to know,
The end of the story,
The beginning of wisdom.

End. Rev2 6 February 2010, 2.35 p.m.

© David Mark Speer, Brooklyn.