May fibers of yearn map out the strikes of yield
that marble my trunk—fine strips of rib to be shivered,
stripes of fat to disburden and clot, organ-complexes
to stretch and fail upon attacks from microbe and
bad alchemy. May a lone hour anoint these failings—
may it bless them, may it braid them into sense—
may forborne heart-plucks sound with their soundings
the dimensions of what I might miss.
-2001
