Dying Again Today

You're dying again today
Fading, slipping, sliding away.
You're dying again today, my love
Like a will-o'-the-wisp on Victoria's grave.

History moves around us on little cat feet, silent on its haunches
and we are deceived, we think
it moves forward.
Rather, it spins in tornados in dog time, circling back on its own infinite return.
I'd give all the poetry in the world
to break our circles;
our DNA, our blood, bones, brain:
the noxious pressure of our ignorance.

It's so hard to watch you die again in the jaws of the machine.
It spins options trading and a profit on the downturn of the market.
It's magic, but of what kind?
The kind that takes milk from children's mouths, the kind that locks old women up in pigsties?
The kind that has given you your deferred dream -
"It's just circles. Circles, bull and bear."

It has its own History now.
Holy, Holy, Holy.

I never loved you as much as I did when you fell:
I thought I might not see you again.

- Elizabeth Stephen, October 2003