The Moon-Blue Mouse with Human Eyes

Circumstances come in many shells—
Capsids, cell-walls, organelles,

Continuous integuments, viral sensations,
Kinship rings, bank accounts, ecosystems.

None is the final summary or key to seeing
How well an individual is managing being.

Well, nor is any one individual an individual.
Compiling all of one’s senses, the residual

Sense collected is then the sense of one’s
Circumstances. Do you share the common

Superstition there’s a mystic prophylactic
Strength in an extensive preparation,

That a cumbersome umbrella hauled along
On a threatening spring day holds off rain?

You do? Oh good, me, too. Let’s stop this
Thing by getting ready to go on living, even

If this sickness never quits. Under these
Circumstances even grimly naming them is

Singing. Sing. Our music was never actual
Kafka, only the moon-blue mouse of hymn.