Denial
I accept that humans have no free will.
Every thought I have, every movement I make
is not mine, but surrenders to the cold wake
of history like a leaf on a lake.
I accept the claims of biology
that consciousness is a means of multicellular life,
a temporary constitution of my genes,
slave to the mathematics of selection.
I accept that we are made of atoms,
that we ourselves are particles of negligible mass,
our greatest collisions accomplishing nothing
to change the course of the vessel
inside which we are made and unmade,
that the sun and I came from one burst of light
and will return to a gray equilibrium
like the fog over Chapel St. tonight,
that these words are the claw marks
of an animal, moved by the unintended beauty
of the cage that surrounds him.
My nails will not break.