To speak too much of grief
To talk of feeling the pierced hearts
Of other lives, of vanished souls
Isn’t this just a bit suspicious?

Isn’t this the worst kind of beggary?
I imagine I would chain myself in bed
For fear of causing you such agony
Oh, I could eat a peach, but I could not feel

The sting of a thorn bush
The torment of the dying sun
The pale sweating brow of death
Unknown and unknowable

Each sting would plunge into your heart
Each death would be yours alone
(Though I would gladly claim
Each incarnation)

“Every man’s death diminishes me”
A poet said
Then each birth engirths me more
Till I outstrip the sun