I can measure you more or less
In years, you in the shadows
Of myself, and don’t
I sometimes feel your
Fingers round my throat?
What is your intention?
Will you paralyze, or suffocate
Me or make me incontinent,
More and more absent-
Minded, will the unspent
Resentments of a life spill
Out, will you steal my will?
Make powerless my heart?
Torture me, give one
Of your long lessons in pain?
I have got off too easily,
You have hidden from me,
My death, bigger than my size
Like a mantis that eats its mate,
Age draws me to you in spite
Of myself. If only I knew
If some good part will outwit you.
Or, in pain
Will I complain and complain?
Will there be memory enough
In me to remember to love?