I look at myself:
torpid in winter,
clad in autumnal armor,
sucked down by vernal forewaters,
laggard, far behind summer...

Low voice, roaming in circles,
under arm an empty bon-bon box,
in it bits of "the Real" picked up in the City.
Afraid.
I clutch close my collection,
plus my sole secret (I'm still alive!)
which I keep secret.

Works of a clock, crafted and wound by others for others,
I am a prodigy,
a flashing child of death.

I'll be a magician
if nothing's left but unbudging,
ramshackle-eyed worlds,
boring nights coagulating on my hand.