23rd in a Series of 26

To make the ground on which you stand vanish,

Spend your time with those who think at a slant

All your beliefs will seem quite pollyannish

Your foundation in reality will float

On thinnest air, your beliefs constructed

From mere lonely, empirical facts:

That effect follows cause, so deducted, 

Will crumble before these clever didacts

Who see causes hidden from mere measure-

The weather’s a hoax, best medicine’s  absence,

Any crackpot theory’s a map to treasure,

When you know the earth is flat—their science

Has no need for mere measurement, rival

Tales to be spun, where everthing’s viral.

I’m pushing Camus up this stony slope,

Nothing but shades of gray to mark the days-

You’d think we’d meet in some well-lit cafe,

But here we are, talking about no hope,

Or it’s Albert holding forth, while I cope

With his boulder shape, feet slipping in clay.

There’s really no rhyme nor reason, he’ll say

Just the task at hand, as over he rolls

Holding his knees to form a hoop, the coat

Muffling his voice, but on still he speaks,

We reach the top again (I’ve lost count) and float

Just a moment there, on our dim peak.

Improbably he’s able to light a smoke,

Then tumbles as I chase after his laughter.

The inheritance of that dark lady is absence,

Her gifts unwrapped to an empty box;

What comfort she offered her bed did mock–

Her explanation followed as silence.

That maps that she traced shaped emptiness,

The promises she whispered were balked;

The doors that she had opened remained locked–

The medicine she offered was sickness.

What is there from before that can explain?

That she stopped swimming? That she let a tide pull

Her into those dark waters, to be twain

On her return, a creature beyond law

Bound by paired desires, beauty not yet flawed,

Like some two-skinned ocean myth, to land chained?