One Minute

We say this to each other, meaning
Something like wait, I won't be long,
Although we rarely come close

To completing whatever we begged
To be left alone for one minute
To do in anything less than many minutes.

It's a silly span, infinitely longer
Than the sum of the infinitesimal
Moments we imagine we experience,

Related to no known natural pulse,
And yet too damn short for our purposes.
I need to perish and resurrect myself

Miraculously by an act of severe attention
To ludicrous improbability, infinitesimally
Close to a miracle before I die.

Just give me a minute. A minute,
Just another minute, one more
Minute, please, one minute.