Ritual VIII

Paul Blackburn

Let me tell you, let me tell
     you, it
     is the repetitions
     keep us going any
     way

That pretty girl crossing
     on the ferry at 6 so
     clearly ignoring
all the attention she gets, will
     grow old, get
     pregnant,
increase the population or not,
     come to look
     different, change
     her ideas, and so,
                  years from now
                  another girl
looking not unlike her will come
     sit in the same seat, not
                  smoking,
eaten up by bad coffee and foghorns
                  back
to some unremarkable life, and
                  the process
                  rebegin
That old advertisement for a cleanser, Old
                  Dutch,
holding a can of Old Dutch cleanser with
     the same picture on it,
and the same one on that, only
     a little smaller, always
     one a little smaller, the
                  same thing
                  over again .