sweet reader, flanneled and tulled

Reader unmov’d and Reader unshaken, Reader unseduc’d

and unterrified, through the long-loud and the sweet-still

I creep toward you. Toward you, I thistle and I climb.

I crawl, Reader, servile and cervine, through this blank

season, counting—I sleep and I sleep. I sleep,

Reader, toward you, loud as a cloud and deaf, Reader, deaf

as a leaf. Reader: Why don’t you turn

pale?