At Last

At last, a reason
not to want to live

forever: the stars
are winking out,

apparently, although
it won't be apparent

to most of us any time
soon, one here,

one there, it will be
eons before noticeable

holes appear in Orion's
belt, for example, or

the Water-Bearer's
bucket, but just knowing

they're going out e-
ventually, who would

want to stay on
under what will become

an unpunctuated
sky, just a few faint grains

of light, too few to make
anything of, nothing

to wish on, hitch
our wagons to, nothing

to lift us out of ourselves,
no pinpricks of hope

in our black box, no reason
to stay, no place to go.

Sharon Bryan
The Iowa Review
Volume 35, Number 1
Spring 2005

Copyright © 2005, the University of Iowa.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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