These mornings, I wake feeling as if, during the night,
       I had been tried by a jury of my peers
       and found—But wait, fellow citizens! Fifty-two years
and no appeal? Is there no merciful alternate?

All those I have loved come by in a long parade,
       their faces strangely tender, etched and grave
       with my own lost intent and their belief.
Through half-closed eyelids I see those who have died,

glaring or bashful in the little tea-lights of my sleep.
       Oaring the thick medium time, they seem to yaw
       toward me in a sort of pregnant slo-mo,
but I can never read their straining lips,

and when dawn strands ...