THE IMMORTAL

You're shivering my memory. 

You went out early and coatless 

To visit your old schoolmasters. 

The cruel schoolmasters 

And their pet monkeys.

You took a wrong turn somewhere. 

You met an army of gray days,

A ghost army of years on the march.

It must have been the slop they ladled you 

The ditch-water they made you drink.

You found yourself again on that street, 

Inside that narrow room

With a single dusty window.

Outside it was snowing as in a dream. 

You were ill and in bed.

The whole world was absent at work. 

The blind old woman next door

Whose sighs and shufles you'd welcome 

Had died mysteriously in the summer.

You had your own breath to listen to.

You were perfectly alone and anonymous. 

It would have taken months for anyone 

To begin to miss you. The chill

Made you pull the covers up to the chin.

You remembered the lost arctic voyagers, 

The snow erasing their footprints.

You had no money and no prospects in sight. 

Both of your lungs were hurting.

You had no intention of lifting a fingen 

To help yourself. You were immortal.