Poem: 10 Billion

I’m depressed. Today, as I waited
for the elevator, a scream,
my neighbour: Oh God! Oh God!
Harder! Yes! More! Oh God!
Into the car and the door closed
on the fading cries above. Smiled
at my dog, spayed years ago,
prancing, impatient to pee.

Scientists just announced it:
10 billion Earth-like planets
in our galaxy alone and
10 billion galaxies, maybe more.
I could fuck and fuck and fuck
a river of cum until I die
and still not pump out enough
for a solitary spermatozoon
on each of the habitable worlds
that glides the star-pocked black.

If an alien dropped by for a beer,
how would I explain myself?
Especially my lack of utility,
my list of daily habits, a thousand
bullet points long, that guides me
to no particular end? Would the beast
understand my elevator trips, my
devotion to a barely sentient thing,
the way I trail it with a plastic bag,
my habits (which verge on obsessions),
my hobbies (which I pass off as passions),
my ruminations, scattered thoughts,
preference for the colour orange?

Would it get my need for clothes
of this design, not that, my tendency
to laugh when what I mean to do is weep,
my faith in your indifference, the way
I start from sleep to memories
of dreams of things that never happened,
places I’ve never been, faces never seen?

Does it hear a nattering voice,
as I do, reminding me of what
I ought when even can is beyond me?
Proper shoes. A hat in the cold.
Money saved for a rainy day (as if
bad weather is the worst calamity).
Ten billion ten billions
and you tell me to be reasonable?
How can I be reasonable when
the only safeguard against my absolute
diminishment is the blessing
of unreason? Go away. I’m depressed.