From Beyond Recall, edited by Lise Weil, ©2005 Talonbooks and the Estate of Mary Meigs.
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?