"Departure from numbers as we expect them
from expectancy, life expectancy.
We could do better or worse, we could be numberless, formless.
Departure from claims and taxes.
Departure from the dateline, from confirmation codes,
from traffic patterns.
Departure from the tower, blown up.
Departure from maintenance of failing systems,
maimed weather, chronic symptoms,
and symptomatic forgetfulness.
There is no sadness here, you say.
Departing from the embankment of what you no longer desire.
It is given up easily, a first and false answer peeled
and pleaded, disregarded.
Departure from who you were once becoming.
Departure from a song and servitude.
Departure from exile, from arson,
from reduplication, prevarication, and silence."