OWNERSHIP

What is yours? Glee, when dusk approaching

tells you the day is nearly done,

when no-one’s hand will strike, reproaching,

your face, when from your stables none

of your sleep-foals bolt, the cleaver

of slaughterhouses dread to wake,

when neither croup nor scarlet fever

from your crew’s ranks their tithes do take,

when you have closed and left behind

one of life’s chapters bleak, away,

when come the night you’ve come to, blind,

not helping, you did not betray?

So glee you have, you say? Conceding

for comfort just enough, I guess.

Show me what’s on the inside, pleading!

Your penitence? Your shallowness?

You are lost. Nobody out searching.

’Round your throat is a collared cage,

but with no lead. You’re mud-sunk, lurching.

And this is you. This is your age.

Your tender age! That golden calf

that attracts not the slightest plea.

You were a riddle. Puzzlers half-

trying out-guessed you easily.