Overcome today with the understanding
that if there is a meaning to the universe
I’m merely a period closing one routine
sentence in the owner’s manual,

and if I’d been left out from the beginning
the meaning would still be clear from context.
My absence would mean nothing at all
except to the most nitpicky readers.

I am not absent
but I am minuscule in comparison
to the broad sweep of the text.
It’s a comforting thought. Nothing

depends on me, you say? No more
than on anything else? That’s 
a cold lick of freedom indeed, 
and as I fade into the invisible background

I’m thinking less and less, 
feeling more and more, and 
more or less invigorated by this,
I turn toward the light with a smile.