I lie on my back in the lawnchair to study

the trees claw up toward heaven.

They have all the sap I lack.

It’s doubt I send rivering cloudways

in great boiling torrents, as if all creation

were a bad stage set I could wave

                                                            way away,

then I could cast my dark spells in a blink

and a flaming fingersnap—and

a universe de Mare pops up

so I win the everlasting argument against all

that was or will or tiredly is.

As if my soul would not in that blink

be obliterate. As if, as kids say.