Our Vanishing

Thanks, no thanks, to eternal life. What pleasure watching my old house broken-beamed, grey elephant brought to its knees? White ash—gone the way of trilobites and horsehair fern, even the nuclear-proof cockroach in deep-freeze. Cueballs knock each other randomly; reverse. the tape and movement looks the same, illustrating the end of time: things happen, but don't matter. And if Lethe strips you like a swimmer from his trunks, where will "I" be? If Heaven without you is Hell, how will I know? A forever of no-never-mind does not appeal, God's heart a cold, contracting cinder. Give me the white light, the slit of split-second calm, and knowing over is over.