and benign as
a flat circle;
time is a screwlock,
a pitiless vice,
extracting the vigor,
then discarding
the pulp of life.
The longer we may live,
the more we may
grow horrified
at our resign as it flays
with its inexorable knife
the gory-
yet-nourishing
gristle of the details
and winnows away
the now-
obvious chaff
of what once mattered
so intensely to us,
but which we
must finally admit
to be dust.
