From Beyond Recall, edited by Lise Weil, ©2005 Talonbooks and the Estate of Mary Meigs.

I can measure you more or lessIn years, you in the shadowsOf myself, and don’tI sometimes feel yourFingers round my throat? What is your intention?Will you paralyze, or suffocateMe or make me incontinent,More and more absent-Minded, will the unspentResentments of a life spillOut, will you steal my will?Make powerless my heart?Torture me, give oneOf your long lessons in pain?I have got off too easily,You have hidden from me,My death, bigger than my sizeLike a mantis that eats its mate,Age draws me to you in spiteOf myself. If only I knewIf some good part will outwit you.Or, in painWill I complain and complain?Will there be memory enoughIn me to remember to love?