Listen to Mary Kinzie reading this poem. The skin, at first like dust, began to loose The torment of the flesh to airiness, All his body’s bounds from their duress Relinquished. A reluctant and diffuse Grace attends this as if the long fuss Of waiting were no trial, the dinginess Swarmed out upon his dying powerless Against his scorn’s degrading animus.
He had no life to speak of, no career
After the first depressions, waiting out
The world’s compulsive exercise of skill
And constant, low-pitched bragging. His one fear,
That he would seem a supplicant. No doubt
He lasted as he did by rage of will.
