His Last Exertion

A bead of sweat in the palm of a hand
suspended by a spectral arm
of this unconscious galaxy

                      *

A bead of sweat no greater than
a seed adrift in no man’s farm—
though who could conceive of darker soil?

                      *

Have faith that to endure the cold
is to be spared a temperature
at which this drop would swelter, boil

                      *

Yet why would fate distil his crystal
ball in a pearl of saline flush
with blood and pigment only once?

                      *

Perhaps this bead—our shrine to thirst—
is all we have for evidence
of his last exertion; or his first

                      *