The lost poems are just that.
You can't find them anywhere:
not in books, not even on the tongues
of those who claim to be poets.
I'm the last stanza of a lost poem,
a poem that arrives in spite of itself
like an unwelcomed letter on your doorstep
or one of the crosshairs sighting in on the face
of an invisible man.

Tonight, an icey comet
crosses the sky, the moon is full
and my refrigerator-empty.
I didn't expect it this late.
It's like living life backwards,
climbing out of the narrow, dark vault
and pulling yourself towards birth.
There is no explanation for it,
no god or Faustian design to it.
The equation of the world
is simply the title of another lost poem.

And who's ever left behind to say?

My wife tells me she's tired, confused
just wants to do her art.
I understand. Completely.
She doesn't believe me,
says I'm maniacally optimistic.
I say, I'm sentient.
Optimistic only in the belief that life
doesn't always have to be a Bergman film.
And I am unwavingly pessimistic
concerning one thing and one thing only:
if those bastards at Nasa don't stop sending
plutonium through the atmosphere,
they're going to kill us all.