What if Never should come again

I must get a new bird
and a new immortality box.
--Anne Sexton


What if Never should come again
Or Why like kisses should happen along
And shatter the day that Daddy made
And Mama shuddered that you were born?

But what if Ever could happen along
And some like They should come again
To swallow the dark that swallows us all
Before we lie all slithery down?

Then we all would shout for the dark to break
Like mahogany splinters and those dark bowls
Of our eyes our hearts come back like birds
To a Somewhere place more here than gone,

Where Sometime frets in the wings for its cue
And Time that begot us and made us new
Is Father and Mother and Lover and Son
And we all are Many, and we all are Few,

And we're counted, One by One.

.