Immortality
[Note: I think I'd like each line centered for this one, but don't know how to tell the computer here to do that. I will try my own indents.]
Prisoners live in a space more confined
Than these two rooms, in a pit designed
To destroy the mind
And, by slow degrees,
To diminish the body's strength
Until at length
What's left is the husk of a man--
Like the tusk of a mastadon
That by some freak of fate survives
Intact when other tusks crumble
Into the merest chicken bones.
So may I myself survive
In some ever-diminishing way
The loss of spouse, of space, career,
The witherings and warpings
Of Procrustean time
Until I have been whittled down
To one big crescent mass
Of ivory.
Prisoners live in a space more confined
Than these two rooms, in a pit designed
To destroy the mind
And, by slow degrees,
To diminish the body's strength
Until at length
What's left is the husk of a man--
Like the tusk of a mastadon
That by some freak of fate survives
Intact when other tusks crumble
Into the merest chicken bones.
So may I myself survive
In some ever-diminishing way
The loss of spouse, of space, career,
The witherings and warpings
Of Procrustean time
Until I have been whittled down
To one big crescent mass
Of ivory.