For exactly sixty seconds riding to work
approaching a traffic light going to green
he understands everything. I mean from the outer
curling edge of the universe to quarks,
the white geometries of time, of language,
death and god, the potted plants of love.
He sits there and looks at the truth. He laughs.
What could we want, except for him to laugh?
Understanding all, he understands
he has only sixty seconds, then he returns
to live with us in ignorance again,
and little enough to laugh at. “Do you have a pen,”
he says to the man beside him,
“that I could use?” The man pats his pocket
and shakes his head and shows his open palms
to say that he is sorry. Fifty-three. Fifty-four.
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