My Human Disguise.
My brain is a stairway to the arrow,
The one and ineluctable pointer
That flies true as any truth can and strikes
Like the rusted tine of an old harrow.
The arrow’s in an attic I enter
With telescope eyes seeking, like a shrike’s,
What I left here for later long ago.
The progress of the unfletched shaft is slow,
Has yet to pierce the humor of my eye.
Seen darkly, dust-mote-shaded, almost shy,
It moves, like Zeno, only half-way here,
Then half more, hardly trying to arrive.
It’s time I see I have nothing to fear.
It cannot pierce me while I’m still alive.