Donald Justice
Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to.
There is no way to ease the burden. The voyage leads on from harm to harm, A land of others and of silence.
If he could sleep on it. He would make his bed with white sheets And disappear into the white, Like a man diving, If he could be certain That the light Would not keep him awake, The light that reaches To the bottom.
How shall I speak of Doom, and ours in special, But as of something altogether common?
Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.Collection: Long Ago