Jocko Benoit

Self-Seekers vs. Self

Fifty million human body cells
die every second while I sit
at a job of complex insignificance
listening to the rain find rooftops,
puddles, umbrellas, jars in a polyphony
of plop and I imagine being the one
to finally decipher showers and storms.

I envy the snowflake photographer
capturing ghostly symmetries,
skeletons of H2O before they dissolve.
Everything I type onto my screen
disappears and reappears thirty times
a second.  My body mostly replaces
itself so my search for self arrives too late.

A deeper not-me watches the chase –
a candle unperturbed by the hurricane.
When I find it, I will first learn
to stare for hours at a snowflake
on the tip of my finger.

Jocko Benoit is the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Real Estate Deals of the Apocalypse (Poems About Donald Trump). His poetry has appeared in Gargoyle, New Ohio Review, Rattle Poets Respond, Southern Poetry Review, Spillway and many other journals.