Oikoumene

“The past takes its leave
And yields to oblivion.”
The whole inhabited world
Grows and shrinks and grows.

What if I am not
Either an essence
Nor an awareness
Nor this theater

Of frailty that traps me?
What if I am these
Words fallen out of the air?

I am this poem, then.
I never was a creature,
Never was a man.

I inhabited,
A while, one of them.