Progress of History

The televisions talk only of bad endings.
Sitcoms irradiate spin-offs that just get worse:
a man runs and is shot, another doesn't
and is shot—this infinite destruction
slowly effaces the lines between nothing
and us all.

The furniture has jaws; the house cats
give up on life and take the houseplants
with them; the microwave is the starting line
to a parade that ends somewhere far away.
This march toward the inevitable
is like your life, mine too.

Except everyone I know is acting younger,
to undo the steps they've laid till now—
60-year-olds take up jogging, stay out
until dawn. They get a little thinner,
like a razor has taken something from them.

Copyright © 2007 Matthew Hotham All rights reserved
from Chautauqua Literary Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission