What Once I Was
Flesh and blood refuses pain
Such as this. I have been rash.
These old fields seen once again
Ply me with a knouted lash.
Buried deep within the mass
Of these hills that take the glow
Still subsists what once I was,
Shouldering under indigo.
It confronts me, bids me strip.
Time, like kersey stand between
Naked flesh and flying whip,
What now is and what has been.
By my own self I am torn
(Most of all I fear that tooth!)
Beating off like bundled thorn
Innocencies of my youth.
Structure
16 lines · 3 stanzas