Never Is Forever

“You know how long never is?”
It was jokingly asked, but
The question hung in the air

At the beginning
Of another numbered year.
Numbered years aren’t part
Of never, and none of us

Had ever lived lives outside
Of numbered years. A small girl
Practiced her new mnemonic,

“I was born close to the end
Of two-thousand ten.”
We know nothing of never
Beyond “here there be monsters.”