Like birds grown used to walking,
when they appear as if their flight’s in fall,
like a casketed face in blank inattention
to the final call,
like hands that hesitate
because in their flask what’s mirrored isn’t near,
like words that mean nothing definite
but scrape around the inner ear,
like an early morning in spring,
outfacing the windows of the ill,
like drunkards who have lost their names,
abandoning themselves to their swill,
like those who died ere they were robbed
of such woes as were just once pronounced,
like things that disappoint their expected heights,
unseen and unannounced –
so comprised, these things I seemed, myself…
but I didn’t live in that house.
As if someone had drafted my likeness
but had built it somewhere else.
[Previous: The Great Turning]
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