Consummation

by M. M. Carpenter

 

You are mistaken. No one was unkind.
But seeing me there among the shadows, fading,
Slovenly and unassimilable, surely
My end and my beginning proved the same.

The bleatings drew a crowd where it was done;
A flurry of eyes that stiffened to attention;
Dust and flies. I was not violent as
The apertures to elsewhen slowly shut.

No say in the matter. Why, then, was there ease,
Raising my writhing face towards horizons
Like a caressing voice, a secret passage?

Who said, with happy melancholy, 'Shall
You spend some time among us, visitor?'
As, silence gouging me, I fell away.