After-Time

Reading Rilke red-eyed, hoping
some one knows something about the afterlife,
the invisible, invincible gods
who hobble us to here.

There's no solace in Rilke's
self-swallowing fountain,
sword and gorge become one
unprintable fuck-fest.

Not even the old Caesars had a clue.
Righteousness the economic health
of the expanding Empire--
all else sighed and died.

What final detail sums us up
the way a bow expresses the ribbon's thinness,
its graceful twist manifest supremely
in darling, daring

anti-utilitarian curls?