Humans are a puzzle
Without a picture on the box
Designed to look finished
After every piece
Never able to find the next hole
Until it is filled
But as soon as the jigsaw edges snap
Into place
We exclaim, "there!
How much better that looks"
Forgetting immediately what we're comparing
The new and improved version to
What it is improved on.


Or sometimes we spend years
Searching for one cardboard shape
But as soon as we find it
We realize it's part of the background
An edge or even a
Corner, perhaps,
Yet so much less interesting
Than the pieces
We picked up along the way.


I cannot believe that humans stop growing
For then
Where do all the new experiences fit
Snap into place
If not a longer leg
A broader chest?
Do we just keep shoving them in
Squeezing them tighter and tighter so that
Death
Is really an explosion of memory?

But then
How will I ever shrink when I grow old?