"The Shell" by Molly Drake (1915 - 1993)
"The Shell"
Living grows ‘round us like a skin
to shut away the outer desolation,
for if we clearly marked the furthest deep,
we should be dead
long years before the grave.
But turning around within the home, this shell
of worry, discontent, and narrow joy,
we grow and flourish, and rarely see the outside dark
that would confound our eyes.
Some break the shell.
I think that there are those who push their fingers
through the brittle walls and make a hole,
and through this cruel slit, stare out
across the cinders of the world
with naked eyes. They look both out and in,
knowing themselves, and too much else beside.