My Body Knows Its Limits

My vista is not a line of pine trees aging
in front of me. It is the infinity of the
internet. A blue jay’s cry shatters the
landscape like an opera singer—then,
silence, or what has come to mean
silence. The forest recombines. As if
time—yours and mine—could be
splintered and sutured back with blue
feathers. As if we could revisit the past
whenever we wanted. And now
studies show brain cells live beyond
death—revert to an embryonic state,
spike in activity after the heart stops.
As if we’re able to circle to the end,
beginning, and future simultaneously.
Leave it to bacterial microbes to show up
like clockwork—scientists estimate
organ failure to the day, hour, depending.
I say to myself, I know what to do. As if
there’s anything to do. I mean, who leaves
the house, without taking their body?